LIB 101--GLOSSARY

• Abstract: A summary of an article or other document.

• Access Point: The entry points to a systematic arrangement of information. Also, the elements you can search under in a given filing system or database.

• Annotation: A note that describes, explains, or evaluates; especially such a note added to an entry in a bibliography, reading list, index or catalog.

• Baud Rate: A measure of the speed at which data moves between computer and a remote terminal across telephone lines. Also referred to as bits per seconds (tips).

• Bibliographic Citation: A citation which includes the title, author name, name of journal, year of publication or other publication information which allows the researcher to locate the item.

• Bibliographic Control: The systematic identification of recorded information and the mechanism for gaining subsequent access to such information.

• Bibliographic Database: A database which provides bibliographic citations as opposed to a full-text database.

• Bibliography: A list of publications (books, articles, reports, documents, etc.) that are selected and organized around a particular theme. It may be either comprehensive or selective.

• Bimonthly: Publication issued every two months.

• Biography: Information on an individual’s life.

• Book Review: Critical evaluation of a literary work, usually published in a periodical or newspaper.

• Boolean Operators see Logical Operator

• Browsing: To inspect in a leisurely and casual way.

• Call Number: A code used to locate an item on library shelves. Generally, the code is an alphanumeric one which indicates an item’s subject content and/or authorship.

• Cataloging: The process of preparing a catalog, or entries for a catalog.

• Catalogs: One way to exercise bibliographic control over the collection in a library or other depository(ies). Most common, a catalog is a systematic listing of the books and materials in a library with descriptive information about each one, author, title, edition, publisher, date, physical appearance, subject matter, special features, and location. In the SCCC Library, books and audiovisual materials are listed on an online catalog shared with North and South Seattle Community Colleges.

• CD-ROM: (Compact Disc-Read Only Memory) A small optical disc which can be used for text, data, audio, video and graphics applications. Information is recorded by laser technology. It can hold 300,000 typed pages or the equivalent of 1,080 floppy disks. Although CD-ROM disks closely resemble those used for audio recording, special disk-drives attached to microcomputers are required to operate them.

• Circulation: The activity of a library in lending books to borrowers and keeping records of the loans.

• Citation: A note of reference to a work from which a passage is quoted or to some source authority for a statement or proposition. Includes information useful in locating the sources including the name of the author, title, and publication date.

• Classification: The systematic arrangement of objects, ideas, books, or other items which have like characteristics into groups or classes. The like characteristics may be size, color, type, form, content, or some other feature. Classification schemes often have a hierarchy of subject levels.

• Client-Server:  Client software runs on the user’s local machine;  the client requests information from the server and presents it to the user.  The server is the computer on which the information resides.  The server receives requests from the client and delivers the information.

• Cooperate Author: The society, institution, government or business responsible for the organization or writing of a work.

• Copyright: The exclusive privilege of publishing and selling a work granted by a government to an author, composer, artist, or their legally designated agent.

• Critical Thinking: Reasonable reflective thinking that is focused on deciding what to believe or do. More precisely, it is assessing the authenticity, accuracy, and/or worth of knowledge claims and arguments. It requires careful, precise, persistent and objective analysis of any knowledge claim or belief to judge its validity and/or worth.

• Cumulated Volume: The volume of an index or other publication which combines entries from earlier issues for a specified period (usually quarterly or annually).

• Data: A representation of facts, concepts, or instructions in a formalized manner (to which a meaning can be assigned) which is suitable for communication, interpretation, and processing.

• Database: A collection of records of individual units of information stored in machine-readable from.

• Database Producer: An independent organization that creates the machine-readable data in a database. May be a professional organization, government agency, or private company.

• Dewey Decimal Classification: The classification scheme devised by Melvil Dewey for library materials. It divides human knowledge into ten main classes, with further decimal division using a notation of numbers. Most public libraries use Dewey.

• Dictionary: Provides the meaning of words in a language or field of knowledge.

• Dissertation: A substantive essay or treatise presented by a candidate in partial fulfillment of the requirement for a doctoral degree.

• Document, page, resource:  All of these terms can be used to describe information available via the World-Wide Web.  The terms "document" and "page" are meant especially for the Web.  Documents and pages can contain text, images, sounds or video clips or they can include links to other documents and pages which have text, images, etc.  A Web document or page will be written using HTML.  "Resource" is a more general term which includes all these other terms and refers to any information available in any format anywhere on the Internet.

• Documentation: The systematic collection, classification, recording, storage, and dissemination of specialized information, generally of a technical or scientific nature. Writers also document their work by providing citations where required or useful.

• Electronic Mail (e-mail):  A system whereby a computer user can exchange messages with other computer users (or groups of users) via a communications network.

• Encyclopedia: Compilation of informative articles on subjects.

• Endnote: A note to a reference, citation, or explanation or a comment placed at the end of a work. see also Footnote.

• Entry: A record of information source in a catalog, database, index or other information source.

• Evaluate: To ascertain, judge or decide the value or worth of.

• Fields: A physical space on a data record which is reserved for one or more data elements.

• File Transfer Protocol (FTP):  A protocol which allows a user on one host to access, and transfer files to and from, another host over a network.  Also, FTP is usually the name of the program the user invokes to execute the protocol.

• Footnote: A note to a reference, a citation, an explanation or comment placed below the text on a printed page. see also End note.

• Full-text Database: Offers direct access to text or statistical data as opposed to a bibliographic database.

• Function Key: Keys mounted on an alphanumeric keyboard that signal to the computer a command to perform an often used function. For example, a function key may be programmed to execute a print command, a display command, or a search command.

• Government Document: A publication originating in or printed with the authority, or at the expense, of any office of a legally organized government. State, federal, and foreign governments, as well as the United Nations, publish vast quantities of materials.

• Guide to the Literature: Explains how to find and use the information sources of a particular subject area.

• Handbook: A small reference book: a manual.

• Holdings: Generally, it refers to the books, periodicals, and other materials owned by a library.

• HTML (HyperText Markup Language):  HTML is a document "tagging" language that allows administrators of Web servers to edit an Internet resource available via the Web so that Web client software can both display it well and make links to other Internet resources.  For example, with an HTML marked-up document (resource), client software (such as Netscape) can display the title in large, bold-faced type, with subheadings in smaller bold-faced type.  Links to other documents could appear as underlined text or in a particular color.

• HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol):  The protocol that supports the transfer of hypertext information.  This is the protocol that allows the World-Wide Web to work.

• Hypertext:  A means of linking computer-based documents in a non-linear way.  For example, suppose you are reading a biography of Nelson Mandela and you come to a reference to his winning of the Nobel Peace Prize.  In a hypertext document, a link could be made between the Mandela biography (the current document) and a document describing the Nobel Peace Prize and all of its winners.  By simply clicking on the word "Nobel Peace Prize" a user could instantly see the linked document describing the prize and its winners’ efforts toward peace.

• In Press: As yet unpublished; in the process of being printed.

• In Print: Materials are "in print" when they are currently available for purchase from a publisher or distributor.

• Index: Lists sources of information on topics, providing complete bibliographic information.

• Information: Facts or figures ready for communication or use. Knowledge communicated or received concerning a particular fact or circumstance, news etc. see also Knowledge and Wisdom.

• InfoTrac: A popular monthly CD-ROM database which indexes the latest four years of popular magazines plus two months of the New York Times.

• Inter library Loan: A cooperative arrangement among libraries by which one library may borrow materials from another library.

• Internet: A large world-wide "network of networks." Many individual campuses, state, regional, and national networks are inter-connected together into one single logical network all sharing a common addressing scheme. The Internet provides electronic mail, file transfer, remote login, news and other services.

• Issue: A single numbered or dated issue of a series, a periodical or a serial publication. They are usually so thin that two or more may be bound together to form a volume that can then be stored in the stacks.

• Joint Author: A person who collaborates with one or more associates to produce a work in which the contribution of each is not separable from that of the other(s).

• Journal: A regularly issued publication of a learned society or professional association which prints current news and research reports in a particular field.

• Knowledge: Organized body of information.. The acquaintance with facts, truths or principles as from study or investigation or the familiarity with a partaker subject, branch of learning, etc. see also information and wisdom.

• LAN: (Local Area Network): Any physical network technology that operates at high speed over short distances of up to a few thousand meters.

• Laser Cat: A quarterly CD-ROM catalog of the Western Library Network. The catalog includes about 3.2 million records from the collections of about 300 libraries primarily, but not exclusively, in the Pacific Northwest region.

• Librarian: A specialist in the care, management, and location of recorded information, and one skilled in the process of helping others locate and use information.

• Librarianship: The application of theories, principles, and techniques to the collection, preservation, organization, and use of recorded communications.

• Library: A collection of books and similar materials organized and administered for reading, consultation, and study.

• Library of Congress Classification: The classification scheme developed by the Library of Congress for designating the subject content of library materials through a combination of letters and numbers. The SCCC Library, and most academic libraries, arrange materials on the shelf in order of the assigned LC call number.

• Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): An authoritative listing of the subject headings developed by the Library of Congress. The SCCC Library copy is located near the Online Catalogs for consultation when determined which LC subject headings were used to designate your topic. The SCCC Library follows the subject classifications of the LCSH however, not all of the LC headings will be found in our subject catalog.

• listserv:  An automated mailing list distribution system originally designed for the Bitnet/EARN network.

• Logical Operator: Also called Boolean operator after George Boole, an English logician and mathematician. A word (OR, AND or NOT) used with an online search command to establish a relationship between two words or phrases. Logical operators may also be expressed in a computer command with punctuation (a comma, for example) or spacing or placement of search terms.

• Magazine: Periodical publication for popular reading, containing general articles on subjects.

• Main Entry: The most complete bibliographic identification of a work contained within a catalog. It will also include tracings of all the other headings under which the same work can be found in the catalog. Usually, the author entry is the main entry in a card catalog.

• Manual: A compact book that treats concisely the essentials of a subject.

• Microforms: Material that has been photographically reduced onto film or paper for later machine reading. These "micro-reductions" come in at least three different machine-readable formats: micro card (on a card), microfiche (4" . 6" sheet), and microfilm (in rolls).

• Modem: An acronym for modulator-demodulator. A modem is used to convert a digital signal from a computer into an analog signal so that it can be sent over a telephone line. The received signal is reconverted from analog to digital by another modem at the other end.

• Monograph: A publication of 50 or more pages, i.e., a book, concerned with a single subject and written for consecutive reading.

• Netscape--a Web browser:  One of several clients available for browsing and viewing the World-Wide Web, Netscape uses a "point and click" interface to provide a wide variety of Internet-based information easily and quickly.  Information available via Netscape is not limited to text.  There are many graphic images, sounds, and even moving pictures that can be viewed or downloaded.

• Network: A group of machines connected together so they can transmit information to one another. There are two kinds of networks, local and remote.

• Off-line: A term used in computerized information retrieval where computer data results are retrieved and printed after a search has been completed.

• Online: Designates the direct interactive process of retrieving computer data while a search is in progress; i.e.the terminal is directly connected to a computer.

• Online Database: The database is located in a computer elsewhere and accessed via telephone lines.

• Out-of-Print: Materials are not obtainable through the regular market channels because the publishers stock is exhausted. One may try to obtain out-of-print works through friends, used book dealers, inter library loan, and advertisements.

• Pamphlet: A monograph (book) of less than 50 pages.

• Periodical: Regularly issued magazine and/or journals and newspaper.

• Primary Source: Information which has not been interpreted by another person, i.e., original articulation of an idea or concept.

• Proceedings: A record of the business transacted by a learned society or other organized group. see also Transaction.

• Protocol:  A formal description of message formats and the rules two computers must follow to exchange those messages.

• Publication Date: The year in which a book is published, or the day of the month on which a periodical is issued.

• Publisher: The person, firm or corporate body responsible for the issuing to the public of a book or other printed material.

• Reference Work: That material designed by its arrangement and treatment to be consulted in the library for definitive, authoritative pieces of information - or its bibliographic location - rather than to be read consecutively. Also, a branch of library services: the personal assistance given by the librarian to individual readers needing information.

• Review Article: Summary of the state-of-the-art of a particular topic’s literature.

• Secondary Source: Information which has been reported, analyzed or interpreted by other persons.

• Serial: A publication issued regularly - i.e., a journal, proceedings, or an annual.

• Style Manual: A set of rules drawn up to ensure that details of capitalization, punctuation and bibliographic citation are in accordance with formal convention. For example, the MLA format.

• Thesaurus: A book of synonyms, often arranged by concept. Also, an authority file or list of subject terms, usually with cross references, used to index a document or database.

• Thesis, Academic: An essay or treatise presented by a candidate in partial fulfillment of the requirements for a master’s degree.

• Title Page: A page at the beginning of a book, giving the full title and usually the author’s name, publisher, and publication date.

• Transaction: The proceedings of a society, convention, etc., especially a published one.

• URL (Uniform Resource Locator):  A system that provides a standard method for identifying addresses for Internet resources.   A URL looks like this:  http://www.sccd.ctc.edu/~library

• Union List: A listing of the holdings of a group of cooperating libraries.

• Volume: A book distinguished from other books by having within its binding a collection of separately published periodical issues, or by being one in a sequence of serially produced publications, or being a subdivision or a large work such as an encyclopedia.

• Web Site:  A server on the Internet which  runs the HTTP protocol and where HTML documents reside.

• Wisdom: Knowledge with information so thoroughly assimilated as to have produced sagacity, judgment, and insight.

• Workstation: A networked personal computer with more power than a standard PC.

• WWW (World Wide Web):  A navigational tool for resource discovery and retrieval on the Internet computer network.

• Yearbook: An annual volume of current information in descriptive and/or statistical form, sometimes limited to a special field.

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