Profile

Extracts from a professional profile, by Hazel Bell, published in The Indexer 1995; 19 (3): 208:

 “Michael Robertson was born and educated in Scotland, graduating there in English Studies. He first departed southwards to acquire a DPhil, again in English Studies, in York; then to the University of Augsburg for four years of research in historical lexicography and bibliography, and a further year in Germany compiling a dictionary of Anglicisms in contemporary German. After another year back in the UK engaged in linguistic and literary bibliography at Cambridge University Library, he returned to Germany to pursue his career permanently there.

“He worked first as a desk editor of English medical books in Stuttgart, setting up a group of freelance copy-editors and indexers and supervising their work. After some months editing International Books in Print in Munich, he cast off his shackles to become a full-time freelance, based in Augsburg, offering all editorial services — translation, copy-editing, proofreading and indexing, with computer expertise acquired in several university courses …

“Freelances are heard to complain of solitude, of being handicapped by living far from London, and by lack of appreciation of their work by publishers and public. Dr Robertson’s career counters the myths, thriving as he does some hundreds of miles from English publishing centres … What circumstantial excuses to offer for failure — but instead they form a fascinating background for enterprising success.”