Indexes has not devcloped as an independent branch in library science from the beginning, but it has gradually evolved in a clo~eas sociation with catalog and under the direct influence of the development of publishing pro cesses and of the rapid social changes. Historically, index in the West can be traced back to eariler concordance. On the other hand, index in the Bast does not show a continuous development. It started with book catnlog, but other types of indexing were later 'adopted from the West. Indexing in the West and in the East can be summarized as follows: 1) In the West, Taylor considers Gesner's Pandectae was the first index but the Concordance of the Bible in 1247 was the first true index. Indexing method was first established later in 1545 in Gesner's Partitiones which appeared in three volumes. Classified index appeared after Partitions, but alphabetically ordered index was not developed until th eseventeenth century. The pxiodical index of La France S~auante in 1683 proved -its value, and Poole's An Alphabetical Index in the nineteenth century became the turning point in the development of indexing. After Poole's Index appeared periodical index and book catalog gradually began to be treated separately, and subject index and cross reference were incorporated into indexing. Also dictionary arrangement of the indexed items was adopted in the second half of the nincteenth, century after Charles A. Cutter developed his theory of rules for dictionary catalog and systematic studies of indexing were carried out by many scholars. In the twentieth century, index was mainly developed in the United States of America, especially by Wilson publishing Company. The general trend is to move away from the gcncral index to subject index. Also the ncwspapcr indcx such as The Times I~zdcx is 21 landmark in the history cf indcxing. 2) In China, thcs arc somc cvidcnccs that $Bizgluh(&), $ was the first indcx, but unforlunatcly the book itsclf has not been found as yet.