The focus of the Culinary Indexing Special Interest Group is to be an educational forum and a network for experienced and novice indexers interested in culinary indexing in various media, such as books, periodicals, CD-ROMs, and web sites. Members must belong to either the American Society for Indexing or to one of its affiliated organizations: the Association of Southern African Indexers and Bibliographers, the Australian Society of Indexers, the China Society of Indexers, the Indexing and Abstracting Society of Canada, and the Society of Indexers [United Kingdom].

The mission of the Culinary Indexing Special Interest Group includes the following functions:

• To serve as an educational forum for its members through discussion of culinary indexing standards and practices, and for nonmembers through educational outreach and instruction by its members
• To promote awareness of standards and practices in culinary indexing to authors and publishers, as well as their awareness of SIG members' competence, experience, and availability in the specialty
• To serve as a referral network, so that members can reliably recommend other indexers who share their specialty
• To serve as a network for sharing information about the culinary publishing industry and potential clients