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OCLS Library Lingo Did you ever want to understand what people who work in libraries were talking about? If you can learn every term in this list--you may know more than the librarians who created this page! A
~A~ Academic
OneFile: This computerized index, produced by Gale Databases, tries
to cover all major disciplines that are studied in a liberal arts institution. Adobe Acrobat®: Software that allows documents to be created, distributed and read by any computer or operating system in its original format (or nearly so.) For example an article can be scanned from the original source and transmitted to another computer. The receiving computer can view the article as if it were looking at the original pages. The software must be installed to view the special "pdf" files. Adobe Acrobat Reader®:
A freeware software program, available for download at the
Adobe site, that allows viewing of pdf files on your computer. ALI (Academic Libraries of Indiana): A resource sharing
consortium of almost all of the academic libraries in Indiana. Students may
request an ALI card from OCLS that allows the student to have check
out privileges at other Indiana academic libraries. Almanac: A book that provides statistics and facts. AMP (business): Applied Management Project; the management project is designed to demonstrate that a student has developed the ability to integrate a diverse education and several years of practical experience. AMP (Christian Ministry): Applied Ministry Project, the ministry project is designed to demonstrate that a student has developed the ability to integrate a diverse education and several years of practical experience. Annotation: A brief summary describing an entry in a bibliography. Annotations are used to evaluate and fully describe a work. Annotations should be brief (rarely longer than 150 words). Article: A written work usually found in a periodical. Barcode Number: See Library Access Number. Bibliographic Record: Information used for the identification of any source. Most records consist of the author’s name, date of publication, title, city of publication, and publisher. Bibliography: A list of sources generally comprised of citations Boolean operators: And, Or, Not Boolean searching: A search strategy for finding specific information on your topic. Using Boolean operators you may combine search terms to find results:
Call Number: The number and/or letter code which determines the location of a book on the library shelf. The number/letter code designates the subject classification of a book. The call number appears on the cover of the book and on the record in the online catalog. Be sure you have the complete call number to easily find the item on the shelf. Example: Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary has a call number of: 423 M551 Card Catalog: A file of records that tells you what materials the library owns and where the materials are stored. Cataloging: The process of preparing bibliographic records to enter into the library’s catalog. CD-ROM: Compact Disc-Read Only Memory; a data storage medium that is used to store and read large amounts of information. Check Out: To borrow materials from the library for a specified amount of time. For example, students in the College of Graduate Studies and the College of Adult & Professional Studies may check out materials for 1 month. CINAHL: This acronym stands for Cumulative Index of Nursing and Allied Health Literature. It is one of the best indexes for nursing research. Circulating Collection: The collection of materials which will check out of the library. Citation: The information needed to describe
and/or locate a particular book or article. A citation
will usually contain information such as author’s name, title,
date of publication, source, etc. Cohort Group: Indiana Wesleyan groups all students into core groups. Your core group consists of your program and a 3 digit number. Example: ASB 900. Collection: The accumulated group of all library materials. Controlled Vocabulary: A specified list of subject terms. Can also be called descriptors. Copyright: The legal provision of exclusive rights to reproduce and distribute a work. ~D~ Database:
Any electronically stored collection of data. In the case of
libraries, it may be a database of articles from journals;
a database of book, videos, etc.; or a combination of both. Dewey Decimal System: The classification
system by Melvil Dewey, first published in 1876, which divides
knowledge into ten main classes, with further subdivisions,
accompanied by decimal notation. Materials are placed
in the library and are assigned a number from the Dewey Decimal
System. The Jackson Library shelves its books using the
Dewey Decimal System. Digital Object Identifier: The digital object identifier
is a permanent identifier assigned to any piece of intellectual property
on a digital network. The DOI number consists of both alpha and numeric
characters. The DOI number is utilized in the APA writing style, on the references
page. Example: doi:10.1109/TE.2007.904601 Dissertation: Original, independent research
written and completed when obtaining a PhD, EdD, etc. Dissertations
& Theses: Database that provides access to abstracts, citations,
and even some full text for every title in their database. It
is made up of dissertations and theses written for master's
and doctoral requirements. DOI: See Digital Object Identifier. Due Date: The date assigned when books that are borrowed from the library must be returned.
Electronic Books (E-Books): Books available in an electronic format and can be accessed and read via your computer or handheld device (see NetLibrary). IWU has a subset collection of e-books that are a part of its larger book collection. E-mail attachment: Files can be distributed to another computer by attaching a file to an email message. Empirical: Data or information obtained through experiment, experience, or observation, and which can be verified. Encyclopedia: set of books containing informational articles on subjects in every field of knowledge, usually arranged in alphabetical order. ERIC: This acronym stands for Educational Resources Information Center. It is a computerized database including the following: abstracts of education journal articles and documents such as unpublished reports, dissertations, and government studies. Expanded
Academic: This computerized index,
produced by InfoTrac, tries to cover all major disciplines
that are studied in a liberal arts institution. ~F-G~ Fair Use: Conditions under which copying is not an infringement of U.S. copyright law. First Search: A proprietary database which can only be accessed by subscription. Each search costs the subscribing institution. It is available via the web. It accesses many subject specific databases, e.g. Econolit; WorldCat. Full-Text Articles: Those articles in an online periodical index, e.g. Expanded Academic, that include availability of the entire article. Sometimes pictures/graphics/charts/tables cannot be included, but just the actual text of the original article. Full-Text Database: A database in which the full content or text, of the article is available for you to access and read immediately. Gale Databases: A computer database vendor that provides access to newspaper, magazine, and journal articles. General BusinessFile ASAP: This computerized index, produced by GaleGroup which is as known as InfoTrac, provides article and newspaper citations for business specific kinds of information searching. Government Publication: Any document created by a local, state or national government organization. Often referred to as a government document, or a public document.
Holdings: See Collection. Homepage: By default, the first page you see when you logon to the Internet. The term homepage also refers to the main web page of a person or business. The homepage for the University is www.indwes.edu The Off Campus Library Services homepage is www.indwes.edu/ocls HTML: Hypertext markup language. Used for documents on the World Wide Web. Http: Hypertext transfer protocol. The client-server TCP/IP protocol used on the World Wide Web. Allows transfer of HTML documents. InfoTrac: See Gale Databases. Interlibrary Loan (ILL): A system of agreements between libraries by which they will share their parts of their collections. If a patron wishes to have a book or article that is not available in his/her library, a librarian may arrange to borrow this item from another library. (Note: Please use IWU Library OCLS for interlibrary loan requests—not your local library.) INSPIRE: Indiana Spectrum of Information Resources; A group of databases, mostly provided by vendors, which are provided through state funding to residents of the state of Indiana. Internet: A global system of computer networks connected via TCP/IP protocols using a telecommunications system. Issue Number: A single uniquely numbered or dated part of a periodical. One issue is part of a larger volume.
Jackson Library: The main library of Indiana Wesleyan University, located on the main campus in Marion, Indiana. OCLS is a department of Jackson Library. Journal: A periodical, especially one containing scholarly articles on research and development in a particular subject field. Journal Holdings List: The list of journals which IWU library has access to in some kind of format. These formats can be paper copy, microform, electronic access (Internet), etc. Keyword: The most significant word in the abstract, title, or text of a work which is used as a search term. KYVL: Kentucky Virtual Library; A group of databases, mostly provided by vendors, which are provided through state funding to residents of the commonwealth of Kentucky.
LAN: See Library Access Number Lexis-Nexis® Academic: A database which provides access to information from newspapers, journals, reference materials and legal documents. Librarian: A person responsible for the administration
of a library. S/he obtains a master's in library science
and are proficient in locating all kinds of information. OCLS
has outstanding "reference" librarians. Library Access Number: The 14-digit number that is
issued to all students for identification purposes. This number is
located on your student ID card. Faculty may request a LAN by contacting
OCLS. The LAN is a part of the computer system at the IWU Library and allows
library privileges at IWU. The number also allows access to a number of subscription
databases that the university provides for student/faculty use. Library Consortium: A formal association
of libraries. GCLC is an example of a library consortium. Magazine: A periodical for general reading, containing articles on various subjects by different authors. Meta search engines: A web site that allows you to search many search engines at one time. Good meta search engines to use include: Ixquik (www.ixquik.com) and Mamma.com (www.mamma.com). Microfiche: A flat sheet of photographic film. Periodicals often store information on microfiche because many pages of material can be stored in this format. See microform. Microfilm: Photographic film rolls housed on reels, cartridges or cassettes. Periodicals often store information on microfilm because many pages of material can be stored in this format. See microform. Microform: Includes microfilm and microfiche. Microfilm is film that contains photographic images of information, e.g. pages of a journal. Microfiche are flat 4 inch by 6-inch sheets of photographic images. Microfilm is either 1 inch wide or approximately. 3 inches wide and on a roll. Special machines are needed to read the reduced images and to print back to a paper format. NEO-RLS (Northeast Ohio
Regional Library System): A consortium of libraries in northeast
Ohio. IWU is a member of this consortium. NetLibrary: A company that provides access to electronic books (e-books). See electronic books. Non-circulating: Library materials which cannot leave the library. Some examples include reference materials, journals, microform, etc. Off Campus Library Services (OCLS): Off Campus Library Services provides you with immediate access to library resources for your research needs. Based in Jackson Library at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, the OCLS staff is prepared to serve the unique needs of adult learners of the Colleges of Adult and Professional Studies and Graduate Studies. Online Card Catalog: An electronic version of the library’s card catalog.
PDF File: Portable document format used by Adobe Acrobat®. Used by OCLS to transmit scanned documents. Peer-reviewed: Also referred to as scholarly, academic, primary, refereed or technical journals. Usually an original publication (not previously published) that contains articles that have been reviewed by peers before acceptance by the journal for publication. Each article submission must fill a ‘gap’ of knowledge in that discipline area and must be substantial enough that those doing research from that article can build and add to the knowledge base. Periodical: Any publication which appears
in regular issues over time—newspapers, magazines, journals.
The term ‘periodical’ and ‘journal’ are interchangeable. Periodical Holdings: See Journal Holdings. Periodical Index: A listing that cites the individual articles appearing in a selected group of periodicals. Plagiarism: The taking or copying of someone else’s words, ideas, thoughts, pictures, etc., and presenting them as your own. Academic writing requires in text citation to show that ideas are coming from outside sources. ProQuest: Database vendor that provides access to full-text newspapers, like Wall Street Journal, and full-text magazine collections for nursing and education. ProQuest also provides access to Dissertations & Theses. Reference Collection: The non-circulating materials of a library which provide basic information about a topic. Reference books may only be used in the library, they do not check-out. Refereed: See Peer-reviewed. Renewal: Extending a check-out for a period of time beyond the original due date. Research: Systematic, intensive searching
conducted to discover new knowledge. Research Article: A journal article that describes original research. It may utilize different kinds of research, e.g. historical, action, descriptive, longitudinal, etc. The author(s) are the ones who did the research/experimentation, etc. They are not writing about research, but the actual research. The article usually will be broken out into sections, including purpose of the study, methodology, findings, conclusion, references. These kinds of articles are usually found in peer-reviewed journals. See also: empirical, peer-reviewed Search: See Literature Research Search Directory: An Internet directory that allows you to search for categorized information. Search directories list information by subject. Good search directories to use are About.com (www.about.com) and Excite.com (www.excite.com) Search Engine: A web site that allows you to perform keyword searches of the Internet to locate information. Good search engines to use are Google (www.google.com) and Teoma (www.teoma.com) and Cuil (www.cuil.com). Serial: A publication that is issued in parts indefinitely over time. Examples: journals, periodicals, magazines, almanacs, etc. Subject Heading: The specific word or phrase
used to find a book or article on a specific topic in a catalog
or magazine index. See descriptor. SWON Libraries
(Southwest Ohio & Neighboring Libraries): A consortium of all
types of libraries located in southwest Ohio; northern Kentucky. IWU belongs
to this consortium and this allows students/faculty to go to these libraries
and check out materials.
Table of Contents: A list of the contents of a work; usually found at the beginning of a book, periodical or magazine. TCP/IP: Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol; the language governing communications between all computers on the Internet Telnet: Internet standard protocol for remote login. Runs on top of TCP/IP. It acts as a terminal emulator. Thesaurus: In a database, this function will lead you to other related terms that should be used for searching your topic; will list synonyms for your search term. Used extensively for searching databases such as ERIC or CINAHL. Truncation: In database or Internet searching, to cut the search term short to retrieve all terms with a common root. Example: If looking for articles on assessment, you would truncate to assess*. This would tell the database to search for all terms beginning with the letters assess, such as assess, assesses, assessing, assessed, assessment, etc. URL: Uniform Resource Locator; the web address of a web site. Example: http://www.google.com is the URL for the Google homepage. Vendor: See Database vendor. Wi-Fi: Wireless Fidelity; Wireless networking. Allows your computer to access the Internet via radio signals. Wildcard: Wildcards are used in the middle of a word to find variants of terms. Each database its own symbol for indicating a wildcard, but it is most frequently a question mark, "?". Example: Wom?n would find articles containing the word women or woman. World Wide Web: World Wide Web. Internet client-server hypertext method of distributing information on the Internet. Hutchison, N. B. (2004, July). Library jargon: Student recognition of terms and concepts commonly used by librarians in the classroom. College & Research Libraries, 65, 349-354.
Off Campus Library Services. (2004). Library resource guide. Marion, Ind.: IWU.
Learn the net: Glossary. (2005). Retrieved from www.learnthenet.com
Library lingo: Some common library terms defined. (n.a.). The University of Texas at San Antonio Library. Retrieved from http://www.lib.utsa.edu/Research/Subject/lingo.html
Pemberton, A., & Fritzler, P. (2004, March). The language barrier: Don’t let library lingo get in the way of learning. College & Research Libraries News, 65, 154-155.
Platoff, A. (1999). Library lingo: Useful phrases to know when using the library. Arizona State University. Retrieved from http://www.asu.edu/lib/help/liblingo.htm
Young, H. (1983). The ALA glossary of library and information science. Chicago: American Library Association.
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