Library and Research Glossary
As with many professions, the library and academic worlds
use a lot of language you may not be familiar with. The following is a selected list of library
and research terms and their definitions to help with your transition to
library and scholarly research. Items in bold
can be cross-referenced.
Abstract: A
summary, usually one paragraph in length, of the contents of an article or other document. Abstracts can be found at the beginning of
scholarly articles or might accompany citations
in a periodical database.
Academic Fraud: A
term that describes any number of activities that go against the academic
mission, including plagiarism and
other forms of cheating.
Annotated: To
have included comments of a critical or explanatory nature. Some bibliographies are annotated to help
users select and understand included items.
Article: A paper
published either online or in a popular magazine or scholarly journal that is accessible in either
print or electronic form.
Auto Alerts: A
service offered by some databases
and other search tools, such as Google, to notify you when new items of
interest are added.
Barcode: A number
embedded on your student ID card after you register
as an Andover borrower that allows you to borrow books and use certain library databases from off-campus.
Bibliographic Record: The information about a book that you find in an online catalog that includes the title, author’s name, and publication information. You use the bibliographic record to discover the library’s holdings of a particular item. Compare to “citation” below.
Bibliographic Management
Tools: Software or Web-based programs that allow you to collect and store notes
and citations and to format and create bibliographies. Such tools include RefWorks,
NoodleTools, Zotero, and bibliography
tools embedded in Microsoft Word 2007.
Bibliography: A list
of citations to materials (books, articles, dissertations, Web sites, etc.)
used in research. Bibliographies can be found at the end of student papers, journal articles, encyclopedia entries,
books, and Web sites. Book-length bibliographies have been compiled on specific
subjects or on items by a particular author and may exist in either print or
electronic format. Some bibliographies are annotated
with comments on the included items. Bibliographies for student papers can be
created automatically using citations added to NoodleTools and other
bibliographic management tools.
Blog: Short for
“Web log,” an online diary or newsletter that is regularly updated and designed
to be read by a wide public audience. The author of a blog is often called a
“blogger.”
Boolean Operators: The
terms “AND,” “OR,” and “NOT” that when used with keywords to search a database can help pinpoint (broaden or
narrow) search results. Sometimes called “connectors.”
Browser: A
computer application, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, or Safari, that
allows pages from the World Wide Web
(WWW) to be viewed and manipulated (for example, searched). To use a
browser to search the Web is sometimes called “surfing.”
Browsing: The
ability to scan a library bookshelf for similar items, made possible because
library materials are generally shelved by subject,
often according to the Dewey Decimal
System or the Library of Congress Classification System.
Call Number: The
unique set of assigned letters and numbers that allows an item to be located in
a library collection. The Oliver Wendell Holmes Library uses the “Dewey Decimal Classification” system
for assigning call numbers; most colleges and universities use the “Library of Congress Classification System.”
Circulating
Collection: The materials that may be borrowed from a library. Items from
the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library can “circulate,” or can be borrowed, for a
three-week period. Some library materials do not circulate, such as the
reference and periodicals
collections, and are designated as “non-circulating.”
Circulation Desk:
The place in the library where books are borrowed (checked out) and returned,
and where reserve books and Interlibrary Loan items can be picked up.
Citation:
Information about a book, article, Website or other information source that is
necessary in order to locate the item for use. Citation information typically
includes the title, author, and publication or access information. Citations
are found in footnotes, bibliographies,
printed indexes, library catalogs, databases, on the World Wide
Web (WWW), and in other places
where information is “cited.”
Citation Style:
The discipline-specific format in which citations
are written. High schools often use the Turabian style of citation, which is a
simplified version of Chicago style; humanities courses often use MLA (Modern
Language Association) style, whereas social science courses often use APA
(American Psychological Association) style. There are literally dozens of
styles that have been established. Typically, each instructor will indicate
what citation style should be used for each course. The rules for citation
styles can be found in Style Manuals.
Knowledge management tools such as Refworks or NoodleTools can format citations to
proper citation styles automatically.
Consortium: A
group of libraries that come together for common purposes, such as sharing
their catalogs among member libraries or allowing users to borrow materials. Andover
belongs to the NOBLE consortium: the North of Boston Library Exchange, which
includes Peabody, Reading, Merrimack College, Endicott College, and others,
which allow SNHU students to borrow books directly.
Controlled
vocabulary: Descriptive terms that have been "controlled" or
standardized for consistency, like the terms in an index. The most common example
of controlled vocabulary are Library of
Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) that you might see in the catalog. These were established by the
Library of Congress, just as the Medical Subject Headings (MESH), which are
established by the National Library of Medicine. Thesauri, subject lists,
and article “descriptors” are
other forms of controlled vocabularies.
Copyright: the
legal right of owners (creators, authors) to determine when and how their work
is copied and distributed. Generally
speaking, if you want to use material that someone else has created you have to
secure their permission to use it; sometimes this involves paying a royalty
fee.
Cycle of Information:
Also called “the scholarly dialog,” or “scholarly discussion,” the process by
which information is used and manipulated by scholars (faculty members or
students) to become knowledge. This new knowledge then becomes information to
other researchers who cite in when they use it to produce new knowledge, and
the cycle or dialog continues. University students are indoctrinated into the
cycle of information by their disciplinary studies, including source citation to avoid plagiarism.
Database: A collection of related information that can
be accessed and manipulated (for example, searched) by a computer. In the
library, the term often refers to an online catalog or an electronic article index
or citation index; search engines, such
as Google, are databases that operate by indexing
Web pages. Databases are one example of electronic or e-resources.
Dewey Decimal System: A form of information organization used in public and school libraries that consists of a series of letters and numbers used to indicate an item’s subject and its address on the library shelves. Note that because libraries organize materials by subject, which is what the Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress Classifications do, finding a book on the shelf with a call number means that surrounding items on the same shelf will pertain to the same subject. Finding books this way is called “browsing” and can lead to wonderful new finds.
E-resources: Shorthand
for electronic resources: collections of information accessed via a computer,
which can be Web- or CD-ROM based, and which provide access to a variety of
formats of information, including indexes, abstracts, articles, books,
dissertations, and other types of content. Often called “databases.”
Full Text: The
complete rendering of an article or document. Traditionally, full text was only
found in print resources; increasingly (but not always) full text articles and
other documents can be found using electronic periodical databases.
Help Desk: The
place in the library where you can ask questions concerning the information you
need (also called the Reference Desk). Librarians at the Help Desk provide
assistance on using the library collections and databases, understanding research assignments, and other aspects of
the research process. They are there
to help you! Just ask!
Hits: The number
of items retrieved from a search performed in a search engine or database.
Holdings: The
actual physical items (books, paper journals, etc.) that exist in a library.
Use a library catalog to check an
item’s bibliographic record to find
the library’s holdings of that item. Items that the library does not hold can
often be borrowed from another library using Interlibrary Loan.
Index: (1) The
section of a book that indicates where major topics can be found within the
book. (2) For periodicals, an index
is a listing of where individual articles
can be found within the various issues. Increasingly, periodical indexes are
moving from print format to electronic databases.
Information: A
term with many meanings depending on the context used, but for our purposes a term defined as any documentation that can be used to create knowledge. It can
therefore consist of everything from spoken words, written communications, statistical
data, sheets of music, photographs and paintings, to computer codes and
scientific formulae.
Information Literacy:
An intellectual process encompassing the ability to define when information is
needed, and to locate, understand, evaluate, utilize, and convey that information
in specific projects required at school, home, work, and in the community. The research process is one component of
Information Literacy.
Intellectual property:
any product of the intellectual process, such as scholarly or creative work,
which can include inventions, literary and artistic works, including images and
music; and such things as symbols, names, and other commercial designs.
Intellectual property is often protected by copyright, trademark, or patent laws.
Interlibrary Loan:
A service through which circulating
materials that one library does not hold
can be borrowed from another library. At the Oliver Wendell Holmes Library,
this service is provided at no charge for current students, faculty, and staff.
Interlibrary Loan is often abbreviated ILL (pronounced EYE-ELL-ELL).
Journal: A periodical publication. Popular
journals contain articles that are
written for a wide public audience (for example Time Magazine); scholarly journals use formal, scientific, or
complex language, and are where scholars publish their research (for example, American Literary Realism). Many
scholarly journals are peer-reviewed.
Journal articles traditionally have been published in print format, but
increasingly older journal articles can be accessed in full text online by using periodical
indexes.
Keywords: The
words and phrases used to express elements of an information topic that are
then entered into a database search
box.
Keyword search:
To search in a database using
keywords. A keyword search is best used to identify and locate unknown items, for example, to find
whether the library catalog or a periodical index contains an item on a particular subject.
Knowledge Management:
A method for capturing, organizing, and storing information
and making it available to others. RefWorks
and NoodleTools
are types of knowledge management tool for managing research citations across projects; an
ePortfolio is another type of knowledge management tool that can collect and
organize student work for using and sharing with others over time. Knowledge
management is an important component of Information
Literacy.
Known item: an
item you know something about, as opposed to an unknown item. An author or title search is best used to identify
and locate known items. If you are
looking specifically for a copy of Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises, you’re looking for a known item.
Library of Congress
Classification (LC): The system of letters and numbers devised by the
Library of Congress to divide knowledge into subject areas. Most college and
university libraries, as well as large public libraries, use the Library of
Congress Classification to assign call numbers and arrange books on shelves.
Doing so keeps books about similar subjects together, which facilitates browsing.
Library of Congress
Subject Headings: A list of controlled
vocabulary terms for describing the subjects of library materials,
established by the Library of Congress. Subject
headings are arranged in alphabetical order by the broadest headings, with more
precise headings listed next to them, such as “Emperors—Rome—Biography.” You
will often see Library of Congress Subject Headings when searching for items in
a library catalog.
Library Catalog:
A list of items in the library. Today, most library catalogs are accessible
online (see online catalog below);
some libraries still use paper card catalogs.
Non-circulating:
The materials that may not be borrowed from a library. Items from the Oliver
Wendell Holmes Library that are non-circulating include the reference and
periodicals collections. Compare to “Circulating”
items.
NoodleTools: A Web-based knowledge management product that simplifies the process of collecting, documenting, and citing sources in a research paper, or other project requiring citations. It helps you to create a personal database to manage collections of references, to import references directly from some of online databases, and to automatically create bibliographies that can be inserted into word processing documents.
Online catalog:
Electronic form of the library card catalog that contains information on items
that the library holds. “Library catalog” and “online catalog,” are
terms that are often used interchangeably, and are often shortened to just “catalog.”
Peer-reviewed
journals: those journals that
have had their articles evaluated or
“vetted” by professional peers of the author (working in the same or an
affiliated field) and judged by an editor or editorial board to be sufficiently
scholarly and original prior to publication.
Periodical: An
item either in print or electronic format that is published periodically, such
as weekly, or monthly. Periodicals can include newspapers, newsletters, popular
or trade magazines, and scholarly journals
in which scholars publish their research. Libraries often have a periodicals
area where such items are housed separately from books and other materials.
Many periodicals are increasingly being accessed through electronic databases.
Plagiarism: To
take the ideas, words, or work of another and using or passing them off as your
own, whether you mean to or not. Plagiarism can be as overt as buying or
copying a term paper found online and passing it in as your assigned class
paper; or plagiarism can be as subtle as not citing all the sources you used in
your research or not citing them properly in your bibliography. Plagiarism is a
serious form of academic fraud and
goes against the academic mission expressed by the cycle of information.
Primary sources:
Original materials or raw data created by an individual, a team, or an
organization, also called “primary source material.” They are from the original time period
(contemporary to events) and have not been interpreted or evaluated by others.
Examples include poems, performances, diaries, census information, and original
newspaper reporting.
Research: For
academic purposes, research can be defined as the process of collecting,
organizing, and analyzing information to create knowledge.
Research Process:
A component of Information Literacy
that entails understanding a research assignment, finding background
information, and locating, evaluating, and using information effectively to
complete a paper, project, or presentation.
RefWorks: A Web-based knowledge management product that simplifies the process of collecting, documenting, and citing sources in a research paper, dissertation, or other project requiring citations. It helps you to create a personal database to manage collections of references, to import references directly from some of online databases, and to automatically create bibliographies that can be inserted into word processing documents.
Search engine: An
online searchable database that
indexes Web pages. No single search engine can index the entire Web, so
bookmark a “metasearch engine,” such as Dogpile.com, that can search across
search engines, or bookmark two or three of your individual favorites, such as
Google, Bing, or Yahoo.com.
Search strategy:
The formulation of your research topic into distinct elements (such as keywords, etc.) that will be understood
and successfully processed by a database.
A search strategy might involve using Boolean
operators such as “AND,” “OR,” and “NOT,” or selecting other options from
the database interface.
Secondary sources:
those materials that analyze, interpret, comment on, or discuss primary sources. They are published
after the fact of the original event, and tend to be argumentative or present a
specific perspective. Examining the footnotes, references cited, or bibliographies of secondary sources can
often help locate primary sources.
Subject: (1) A
category of information or a field of study, as in “What subject have you
decided to major in?” (2) The organizational scheme libraries use most
frequently to order books on shelves. This keeps books on similar topics
together to facilitate browsing. (3)
A grouping of keywords associated
with a topic: colonial agriculture
is a subject, and a broad one. A subject does not identify what you are going
to do with or say about your topic.
Subject headings: The controlled vocabulary terms chosen by experts under which books and
articles are described, organized, and arranged in library catalogs and databases.
Items with the same subject heading are about the same topic; therefore, finding
and using subject headings is a very powerful way to locate more information
about a topic efficiently and effectively. Subject headings in periodical databases are sometimes called by
other names, such as “descriptors.”
Style Manual: A
book or Web page that prescribes how different materials used in research
should be listed in a bibliography or Works Cited page. The most commonly used style
manuals are those from Turabian, the Chicago
Manual of Style (CMS), the Modern Language Association (MLA), and the
American Psychological Association (APA).
Thesis Statement:
A brief statement, usually located in the introduction of a persuasive essay or
speech, that articulates the main idea and sets out what the writer or speaker
aims to prove.
Thesaurus: (1) A
book of synonyms, antonyms, and alternate terms. (2) A list of controlled
vocabulary used by some databases
to help pinpoint search terms for more efficient searching.
Topic: The main
thought or subject of a paragraph, book, or research paper. Often topics
consist of several different concepts or ideas that might be broken down into keywords in the search for information
about them.
Truncation: A search strategy used in online catalogs and periodical databases to truncate, or
shorten, a term using a symbol in order to find variables. For example, a keyword search in the Shapiro Library’s
online catalog for temple? will return hits
for both “temple” and “temples.” Truncation symbols may vary in different
tools; be sure to check the Help feature for more details. See also wildcard.
Unknown item: an
item of information about which you know little or
nothing, as opposed to a known item. A keyword search is best used to
identify unknown items. For example,
if you are searching a periodical
database for an unspecified article
on “violence,” you’re looking for an unknown item.
URL: “Uniform
Resource Locator” commonly called the “address” of a Web page.
Wiki: A website
or similar online resource that allows users to add and edit content
collectively. Wikis on the Web that can be edited by anyone, such as Wikipedia,
are generally not considered scholarly sources appropriate for university
research.
Wildcard: A
symbol used in online catalogs and periodical databases to stand in for
an unknown character in a term. For example, a keyword search in the Shapiro Library’s online catalog for
behavior*r will return hits for both
“behavior” and “behaviour.” Wildcard
symbols may vary in different tools; be sure to check the Help feature for more
details. See also truncation.
Works Cited: In
the MLA Style Manual, the list of citations
of works that were actually cited in a research paper, project, or
presentation. Sometimes used interchangeably with “bibliography” to describe the list of sources used in research.
WWW/Internet:
Often (erroneously) used interchangeably with “the Internet,” the World Wide
Web, or simply “the Web,” is the total accumulation of all the pages of
electronic information that can be accessed via a browser. Information found on the Web needs careful evaluation
before being included in university research.
