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Glossary
of Library Terms |
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This glossary has been created to help
explain terms used in LAMP. It also contains terms
common to libraries in general, as well as terms
specifically related to helping Riverside Community
College District patrons.
A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P |
Q | R | S | T | U-V|
W-Z
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A
Abstract - A brief summary of
a book or article, accompanied by the bibliographic
description (including author, title, publication
information) of the work.
Annotation - A brief description
of an information source which follows a bibliographic
citation. An annotation may include a summary
of the key points addressed in the source, a description
of the kind of source, and an evaluation of the source. See
also Citation and Bibliography
Archive - A repository holding
documents or other material, usually of historical
value.
Article - A composition on a
subject, usually found in journals, magazines, encyclopedias.
Audiovisual materials - Non-book
materials such as filmstrips, recordings, films,
records, video and audio cassettes, and compact discs
(CDs).
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B
Bibliographic
citation - The information that describes a
specific item. For example, the bibliographic
citation for a book would include the book's title,
author or editor, place of publication, year of
publication. The bibliographic citation for
an article would include the article's title, author,
title of the magazine or journal, volume number,
and page numbers of the article. Sometimes
also referred to as a bibliographic entry, reference,
or just as a citation.
Bibliography -
A list of items (books, articles, videos) arranged
in a logical order and having something in common
such as the author, or a common subject. Books and
scholarly articles often have bibliographies at the
end of the work, listing the information sources
on which they are based. A bibliography
contains a brief citation describing the source used,
so the reader can locate the item.
Book truck - A cart used to
hold books before they are re-shelved, and is also
used to transport books and other library materials
to the shelves for re-shelving.
Boolean operators -
A method of combining search terms by expressing
the relationship of one concept to another, using
the words AND, OR, and NOT. Most databases allow
searching with these three Boolean operators. For
more information look at Boolean
Operators page.
Bound periodicals - A
term referring to multiple issues of periodicals
which have been covered by a binding to create a
single volume. This process is used in libraries
to preserve items for long-term use.
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C
Call number - An
identification number assigned to a library collection
item (e.g. book, video recording, musical score)
which allow library users to locate the item in the
collection or to request ("Call") the item from a
closed stack area. For example the items in the Riverside
Community College District Library and Learning Resource
Center's collection are identified with Library of
Congress call numbers.
Circulation desk - A service
desk where books and other materials are loaned or
checked out to library users. Library materials which
do not circulate (Reference books and periodicals,
for example) can be used within the library.
Citation - See Bibliographic
citation.
Copyright - Copyright laws protect
intellectual property from misuse by other individuals. Ideas
and information in print or electronic form are the
property of the person who created them. You
must obtain permission to use copyrighted material. You
may use copyrighted materials for educational purposes
if you adhere to the fair-use guidelines. For more
information refer to the Copyright page.
Controlled
vocabulary - specific words and phrases (descriptors)
used when creating subject headings for a book,
article, etc. for a specific index or catalog. For
example, the books within the Riverside Library
collection are given subject headings from the Library
of Congress Subject Headings. Using controlled
vocabulary brings together items of a similar subject
under a single term. Compare with Natural
language.
Cross-reference - A note in
an index or document which refers to the main entry
or preferred term. Often the note begins with See: followed
by the term you should use.
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D
Database -
An organized collection of computer records that
have a standard format (e.g. Expanded Academic ASAP,
LAMP Catalog). For an overview of databases and database
searching see Searching
Indexes.
Descriptors - Words or phrases
used as Subject Headings.
Dictionary - A book which defines the terms of a language,
profession, discipline, or specialized area of knowledge. The
terms are arranged in alphabetical order. Usually, a language
dictionary will give the spelling, pronunciation, and meaning
of a word.
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E
Electronic database - see Database
Encyclopedia - A work containing
factual articles on subjects in every field of knowledge,
usually arranged alphabetically. A subject encyclopedia
is a similar work, on a single field of activity
or a single subject. An encyclopedia can be
one volume or many volumes, depending on the amount
of material included.
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F
Fair-use guidelines - The doctrine
of fair use allows copyrighted works to be used for
purposes such as criticism, news reporting, teaching,
scholarship, or research. Fair use generally applies
to nonprofit, educational purposes that do not affect
the potential market for, or value of, the copyrighted
work. Read more about fair-use guidelines on the
following Web Page:
Fair
Use of Copyrighted Materials
Field - The part of a record used for a particular
category of data. For instance, the title (ti) field in a database
record displays the title for the record.
Full-text database - A bibliographic
database which contains the complete text of the
bibliographic record (such as a journal article)
which is referenced in the database.
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G Government
documents - monographs, serial
publications, reports, or official communication
published by any international, federal, state,
county or municipal governing body.
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H Hold -
A library user may place a hold on a book charged
out to another person; this ensures that the person
placing the hold will be next in line to receive
the book when the book is returned.
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I Index -
A list, in alphabetical or numerical order, of the
topics, names, etc. that are treated or mentioned
in a publication or group of publications, along
with references to the pages where the topics are
discussed. Author, subject, and title indexes
are common; the type of index depends on the type
of material covered in the publication.
Interlibrary Loan - Riverside
Community College District (RCCD) faculty may obtain
materials not owned by the Riverside Community College
District Library and Learning Resources Center (LLRC)
through this free service. The Reference Librarian
will assist in this procedure.
IMC - Instructional
Media Center is part of the Library and Learning
Resource Center (LLRC) of the
Riverside Community College District. For more information
visit the IMC home
page.
Issue number - An issue number
is used in conjunction with the volume number to
indicate a specific magazine or journal issue. In
the example The American Journal of Public
Health v87 no. 2, February 1997, this is the
second issue of the journal for the year 1997.
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J
Journal - A periodical on a
specialized topic. Journals are often published
by a professional association, society, foundation,
or institute. A Refereed journal is one in which
the process to determine if an article will be accepted
for publication is done by the writer's professional
colleagues, or peers (also known as the peer review
process). Sometimes refereed journals are also
called Scholarly journals. See also Magazine or Refereed
journal.
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K
Keyword searching - Keyword
searching allows a user to construct a search by
looking for a word or phrase which may be contained
in any of several fields (e.g. author, title, or
subject fields.)
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L
LAMP - Stands for Library Access
to Monographs and Periodicals.
Library of Congress Classification
System - A classification system developed
by the Library of Congress for its collection,
and used by most of the nation's college and
university libraries.
Library of
Congress Subject Headings (LCHS) - This is
a four volume set of alphabetically arranged subject
headings that catalogers and indexers use to classify
library materials, including books and periodicals. The
LCSH will identify the correct heading to use,
as well as list broader topics, narrower topics,
and related topics. Knowing the correct subject
heading can make subject searching more effective.
LLRC - Stands
for the Library and Learning Resource Center of the
Riverside Community College District. It is
made up of the 3 campus libraries (the Martin Luther
King Jr. Library on the Riverside City Campus; the
Wilfred J. Airey Library on the Norco Campus; and
the Moreno Valley Campus Library) as well as the
Instructional Media Center (IMC).
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M
Magazine -
A periodical containing news stories or articles
on various subjects and written for the general public
(as opposed to a scholarly or technical audience). See
also Journal.
Microfiche -
A small, flat sheet (usually 4 in. x 6 in. or 3 in.
x 5 in.) of photographic film which contains
small images arranged in horizontal and vertical
rows.
Microfilm -
Photographic film showing small images of publications,
such as the contents of entire newspapers. LLRC microfilm
is packaged on reels and viewing and copying is available.
Microforms - Documents, often
ones that are bulky or liable to deteriorate rapidly,
which have been photographed and reduced in size
to reduce the storage space required and to preserve
them. Common formats for microforms are microfilm, microfiche,
or microcard. Selected college catalogs, telephone
books, newspapers, and magazines are available in
microform.
Monograph -
A scholarly book on a single subject, class of subjects,
or person. A more specific definition is a lengthy
work on a particular subject or person, detailed
in treatment and often containing bibliographies.
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N
Natural language -
everyday language; in database searching, a
natural language search allows the user to type words
in the same way that a person normally speaks them.
Compare with controlled vocabulary.
Nesting - a searching structure
that involves using parentheses to insure that Boolean
operators are performed in the sequence you intend.
This technique allows you to build a complex search
using two or more operators (AND, OR, NOT).
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O
Online catalog - A catalog in
electronic (machine-readable) format and accessible
online. Also known as an Online Public Access
Catalog (OPAC).
Oversize - A book which is too
large to be shelved in normal call
number sequence on the shelves of a library.
Oversize materials may be shelved in a separate location,
as indicated in the entry in the online catalog.
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P
Periodical - A publication that
is produced at regular intervals, or "periodically",
and is intended to appear indefinitely. Generally,
the frequency of publication is weekly, monthly,
quarterly. See also Magazine, Journal, Serial.
Periodical index - Periodical
indexes list articles which have appeared in journals, magazines,
or newspapers. They list author, title, name of periodical, volume,
pages and date of publication. Abstracts are indexes
that also contain summaries of the content of the
article. Paper indexes and abstracts can be found
in the Reference Area. Web-based indexes and
abstracts are available via the LAMP Home Page - ELECTRONIC
RESOURCES.
Plagarism - Stealing someone
else's published ideas or information and presenting
them as your own, without giving proper credit.
Popular magazine - see Magazine
Primary
source - Primary sources are those records
generated by a particular event or time period,
by those who participated in or witnessed it. Primary
sources contain original information and are usually
the place where the original information first
appears. Examples of primary sources include
interviews, diaries, letters, speeches, results
of experiments or original research, literary
works, autobiographies, original theories, and
other materials.
Compare to secondary source. Back to top
R
Range -
A row of library book shelves, usually double-faced. A
group of ranges may be referred to collectively as
the Stacks. See also Shelving.
RCCD - Stands
for the "Riverside Community College District." Record -
a collection of related data, arranged in fields
and treated as a unit. The data for each item in
an electronic database makes up a record.
Refereed journal -
a periodical in which professional colleagues, or
peers, determine if an article will be accepted for
publication.
Reserves - Materials which a
professor has set aside for a class to use. These
materials may be checked out at the Circulation/Reserve
Desk. Loan periods will vary: some items circulate
for 2 days, others for 2 hours. Check the LAMP
Online Catalog-Reserves under the professor's
name or course number to identify reserve materials.
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S
Scholarly journal - see Journal
Secondary
source - Secondary sources are those records
generated by an event but written by non-participants
or witnesses of the event. Secondary sources
are based on or derived from primary
sources but have been interpreted or analyzed. Examples
of secondary sources include magazine and journal
articles, literary criticism, biographies, and
encyclopedia articles which analyze or interpret
primary sources.
Serial -
Any publication issued in successive parts, appearing
at intervals, (usually regular ones), and, as a rule,
intended to be continued indefinitely. Examples
would include newspapers, periodicals, annuals, proceedings
of a society.
Shelving -
Collectively, the shelves upon which books and other
library materials are stored.
Stack(s) - The shelves on which
the library's materials are stored. The plural,
stacks, is often used.
See also Range, Shelving.
Style manuals - Publications
listing and describing specific guidelines for writing
research articles, essays, and bibliographies. Many
professional fields have their own style manuals. Style
manuals are also important because they insure consistency
among publications. Two examples of style manuals
would be the APA Publication Manual and the MLA
Handbook.
Subject headings -
words or phrases assigned to books and articles and
used to index these items by topic. Determining the
correct headings for a specific database or catalog
is an important part of effective research. Subject
headings are also known as descriptors. See
also Thesaurus.
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T
Thesaurus -
a list of all the subject headings or descriptors
used in a particular database, catalog, or index.
Trade publications - Periodical
articles and books written by and for people working
in specific trade occupations. Examples of trade
publications would include periodicals for construction,
mechanics, and automotive repair. Compare with magazines,
or journals.
Truncation - the process of
typing a special symbol at the end of a word's root
form to retrieve all possible endings of that word.
Frequently used symbols for truncation include the
asterisk (*), the pound sign (#), or the question
mark (?). For more information see Truncation.
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U-V
Volume or Volume
number - In relation to periodicals, a volume
number refers to all the issues of a specific journal
or magazine for a specific time period (usually
one year). For books, a volume indicates the
order of a book in a series or set.
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Additional Glossary
Links:
Library Lingo, University of Texas at San Antonio Library Online
Dictionary ofLibrary and Information Science, Ruth A Haas Library, Western
Connecticut State University
Credits
The following glossary lists were consulted and terms adapted for the LAMP
Glossary of Library Terms.
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