An outstanding achievement of the SHP has been the indexing of periodical material for the pre 1950 period. Although the National Library of Jamaica has card indexes to the Daily Gleaner for the period 1950 to 1975, and a computerized index for the post 1975 period, no index existed for any newspaper or periodical for the pre 1950 period.

Expanding on this period, using a computerized keyword indexing programme written by Graham Chan, formerly of the University of the West Indies Library, the SHP produced An Index to Select Jamaican Serials, 1868-1980 that contains over 25,000 entries by author/subject, providing an index to articles, letters, obituaries, reviews and fiction items in The West Indian Critic, The West Indian Review; Civil Service Magazine; Civil Service Outlook; Jamaica Imperial Association; Police Magazine; The Banana News; The Jamaica Standard; Jamaica Native Baptist Free Church, among others.

This ambitious project was undertaken by Barry Higman, Carl Campbell, Joan Campbell, Hermine Gentles, Jennifer Maddix, Peter Molife, Elizabeth Pigou-Dennis and Basil Reid.