Acquisitions Staff Resources

Glossary of Library Terms

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

AACR2: Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, 2nd edition.

Abridged Dictionary see Dictionary.

Abstract: A brief, non-judgmental summary of a work, often of a periodical article, accompanied by the bibliographic description of the work.

Abstracting Service: A collection of abstracts in a particular field or on a particular subject prepared by an individual or a commercial organization and regularly received by subscribers. Usually the abstracts are arranged by subject, and often include author and subject indexes. Psychological Abstracts is an example of an abstracting service.

Academic Journal see Journal

Accession number: 1) A number assigned to a book or item as it is received by the library, through continuous numbering or a coded system. 2) Sequential numbers assigned by distribution centers to publications.

Acronym: A word formed from the initial letters of a name, such as ALA or AACR2.

Added entry: Any entry made in addition to the main entry. Added entries can be made for joint authors, illustrators, editors, compilers, translators, series, title, and subjects.

ALA: Acronym for American Library Association.

Allocation: Designated funds.

Analytical entry: An entry for a part of a work or for a whole work that is part of a series for which a comprehensive entry is made.

Annual: A serial work that is issued once a year.

Appropriated funds: Funds that have been allocated to specific subject areas for the current fiscal year as part of the library budget.

Approval plan: An agreement between a library and a supplier that allows the supplier to automatically send the library one copy of each item on a specified subject or in a particular format.

Archival: Of a quality suitable for, or deserving of, long-term storage. Archival paper will not fall apart over time like most paper used in the last 30 years does.

ASCII: Acronym for American Standard Code for Information Interchange; a character coding system widely used as a framework for computer communication.

Audiovisual Materials: Non-book materials such as film-strips, recordings, films, records, video and audio cassettes, CDs, etc. Sometimes these are just called AV.

Authority file: A record of the proper form of names, subjects, or series used in a catalog. The purpose of an authority file is to maintain uniform entries.

Autobiography: An account of a person’s life, written by that person. See Also Biography.

Backfiles: Non-current periodical issues purchased to fill lacunae in our collection of a particular title.

Barcode: A code arranged in a series of parallel lines or bars, representing data that is transferred by a bar code scanner for computer use. Used on most library materials.

BBIP: Acronym for British Books in Print.

Bibliographic Citation: The information needed for someone to find the item. For example, the bibliographic citation for a book would contain the Title, Author or Editor, Edition, Place of Publication, Publisher and Year of Publication. The bibliographic citation for an article would contain the Title of the Article, Author of the Article, Title of the Periodical, Volume Number, Issue Number (or sometimes the month and date), Year of Publication, and the Page Numbers. Sometimes also referred to as a bibliographic entry, reference, or just as a CITATION.

Bibliographic Control: The creation, development, organization, management and exploitation of records prepared firstly to describe items held in libraries or on databases, and secondly to facilitate user access to such items.

Bibliography: A list of items such as books, documents, articles, videos, etc. arranged in a logical order and having something in common such as the author or producer, a subject, or the geographic region. Books, scholarly articles, term papers, etc. often include bibliographies listing the information sources on which they are based. A bibliography usually contains identifying information, for example title, author, publisher, date and place of publications of a book, so that the reader can locate the item.

Bio-bibliography: A Bibliography with brief biographical information about the author or authors of the works.

Biography: A written account of a person’s life, or some portion of their life. See Also Autobiography.

BIP: Acronym for Books in Print.

Book Plate: A label pasted in a book to mark its ownership and sometimes to indicate its location in a library.

Boolean Searching: A method of combining search terms by expressing the relationship of one concept to another generally using 'and', 'or', 'not'. The expression "Value 1 and Value 2" requires both values to be in the grouping retrieved; "Value 1 or Value 2" will retrieve either of the values; "Value 1 but not Value 2" will retrieve only Value 1 items with no mention of Value 2. For example, searching "gone and wind" would pick up the title Gone with the Wind as well as Margaret Mitchell of Atlanta, the Author of Gone with the Wind"; "gone or wind" would pick up the above titles plus Going, Going, Gone; Wind and Beyond; Wind in the Willows; The Parade's Gone By; and Watching the Wind. See Also Keyword Searching.

Bound: A term referring to pages, sheets or issues of periodicals which have been covered by a binding, usually hardback, to create a single volume. This process is used in libraries to preserve items for long term use.

Bound With: A term used by cataloguers when referring to books published separately but subsequently bound together.

Broad: Applies to a sheet of paper which is divided by halving the long side (i.e. across the narrow way). This is the regular or common way of dividing a sheet. Hence a broad folio, quarto, or octavo.

Broadside: A large sheet of paper printed on one side right across the sheet, for sheer distribution, and usually intended to be posted up, e.g. proclamations, ballad sheets, news-sheets, sheet calendars, etc.

Call Number: Letters, numbers, and symbols (used separately or in combination) assigned to a book to show its location in the library shelving system. Call numbers are derived from the classification system used by the particular library.

Catalogue: A list of items such as books, periodicals, maps and/or videos arranged in a defined order. The list usually records, describes and indexes the resources of a collection, a library or a group of libraries.

Cataloging: The process of describing a work bibliographically and assigning a call number. Includes determining the main entry, describing the work, and assigning added entries, subject entries, and a call number.

Cataloging in Publication: A program sponsored by the Library of Congress. A partial bibliographic description is provided in each book produced by cooperating publishers. (Acronym: CIP.)

CD-ROM: Acronym for Compact Disc - Read Only Memory. Information technology which is used to store large databases and provide access to them via computer. Examples of information stored on CD-ROMs are periodical indexes, abstracts, statistics, directories, and other complete texts.

CIP: Acronym for Cataloging in Publication.

Citation see Bibliographic Citation.

Claim: Any communication directed to an agent or source to hasten delivery of overdue material.

Classification number: The number assigned to a work to show its subject and to indicate its location in the collection.

Collation: That part of a description of a book, apart from the contents, which describes the book as a physical object by specifying the number of volumes, pages, columns, leaves, illustrations, photographs, maps, format, size, etc.

Collection development: The process of identifying the strengths and weaknesses of a library's information resources with respect to patron needs and community resources, and of attempting to correct the weaknesses. It requires a continual examination and evaluation of the library's resources. Further, it requires a constant study of patron needs and changes in the community the library serves.

Colophon: An inscription or identifying device sometimes found at the end of a book; it often includes such publication information as typeface or printer.

Compendium: A work containing in a small compass the substance or general principles of a larger work; a brief, comprehensive summary.

Copyright: The exclusive right granted by a government to publish a work for a specified number of years. The copyright protects the author and publisher by preventing others from copying the work or a significant part of it without permission.

Corporate body: An organization or group of persons that is identified by a name and that acts as the entity responsible for a work. Corporate bodies include associations, conferences, institutions, business firms, and governments.

CRL - Center for Research Libraries - is a consortium of North American universities, colleges, and independent research libraries. The consortium acquires and preserves traditional and digital resources for research and teaching and makes them available to member institutions through interlibrary loan and electronic delivery .

Cross-References: In indexing and cataloguing, references or directions from one heading to another.

Cumulation: The progressive inter-filing of items arranged in a predetermined order and usually published in periodical form, the same order of arrangement being maintained.

Cutter number: A letter/number combination, which appears as the second element in a call number, and arranges items within a subject classification by author and/or title.

Database: A collection of computer records that have a standard format, usually containing Fields that are searchable and allow some electronic manipulation such as sorting or grouping. Databases within the library usually contain Bibliographic Citations (information about books, articles, government documents, etc.) although databases containing statistical material or the full text of selected publications are also possible.

De-acidification: The process which raises the pH value for paper documents to a minimum of 7.0 to assist in their preservation.

Delimiter: A special character used to designate the beginning of a field, record, or string.

Descriptors: Words or phrases used as Subject Headings.

Desiderata: A list of items which are out-of-print or hard to obtain. Requestors have indicated that the title should be added to the collection and searched on the out-of-print market.

Diacritic: Used in many foreign languages to indicate differences in pronunciation and meaning between the marked letter and its unmarked counterpart; usually take the form of marks placed over, under, or through letters or combinations of letters.

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 each word. A dictionary of the words and terms of a restricted field of knowledge gives only the meanings. ABRIDGED DICTIONARIES limit themselves to the most commonly used words. UNABRIDGED DICTIONARIES aim at a much higher level of completeness.

Digital: Representation of data or information in combinations of separate groups of digits suitable for processing by a computer.

Disbursing: A bookkeeping procedure that pays for an item from encumbered funds.

Dissertation: A publication reporting original research that is a requirement for a Ph.D. degree.

Edition: All the impressions (copies) of a book printed at any time from one setting of type. For non-book materials all of the impressions made from a master copy by one company or agency.

E-Journal: A Periodical that is available in an electronic or computerized form such as on the Web or on CD-ROM. An abbreviated term for electronic journal.

Encumbering: A bookkeeping procedure that commits a given amount of money to the payment of an order. Each time an order is placed an amount of money (encumbrance) equal to the total price of all items in that order is deducted from the allocation.

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.

Entry: A record of an item in a catalog. In addition to the main entry, there are title entries, series entries, and other types of added entries and subject entries.

Enumerative Bibliography: A list of recorded items compiled within limits set by the compiler; these may be geographical, chronological or topical.

Federal Depository Library Program: Established in 1895, and supported by the U.S. Congress, it distributes U.S. documents to designated libraries. Some, but not all of the documents, are technical reports.

Field: A subdivision of the computer record used for a defined category or purpose. An example in a Bibliographic record is the author field, where the name of the author is located.

Field Specific Search: A search of a Database that identifies the occurrence of a term, using either Free Text or Controlled Vocabulary, in a particular Field in the database. A field specific search is more precise than searching all fields. A common example is a "subject" search in a library catalog.

Free text: Usually describes a method of searching a database using Natural Language rather than a Controlled Vocabulary. The person searching would search as many terms as she/he could think of that would be related to the topic of interest. The computer would search all Fields, or designated fields.

Glossary: An alphabetical list of technical terms within a subject field, including definitions. A glossary may also be a list of unusual or obsolete terms.

Government Documents: Monographs, serial publications, reports, or official communication published by any public governing body--federal, state, county, or municipal.

Hypertext: A method for embedding special links (hyperlinks) in documents. The links provide connections with related data (text, images, or sounds) and resources, either local or remote.

ILL: Acronym for Interlibrary loan.

Illustrative matter: Pictorial matter appearing in a work. Includes pictures, portraits, charts, graphs, maps, and facsimiles

Impression: All the copies of an edition produced at one time.

Imprint: 1) Publisher's name, place of publication, and date of publication for a book. 2) A mark or pattern produced on a surface. In print: An item currently available from the producer; the term is used primarily in connection with the book trade.

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. An index might be for a book, an encyclopedia, a group of periodicals, newspapers, government documents, etc.

Interlibrary loan: A service to obtain from other libraries, books and journals which our library does not own and which patrons have requested. (Acronym: ILL.)

Invoice: Billing from a publisher or an agent for library materials received.

ISBD: Acronym for International Standard Bibliographic Description. A standardized format for descriptive bibliographic information compatible for computer input.

ISBN: Acronym for International Standard Book Number. A unique ten-digit number assigned to each book published in the United States as well as in other countries.

ISSN: Acronym for International Standard Serial Number. A unique eight-digit number assigned to each serial title published.

 

Journal: A Periodical on a specialized topic. Journals are often published by a professional association, society, foundation, or institute. A REFEREED JOURNAL or PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL is one in which the process to determine if an article will be accepted for publication is done by professional colleagues, or peers (also known as the peer review process). Sometimes these periodicals are also called SCHOLARLY JOURNALS or ACADEMIC JOURNALS. See also Magazine.

Keyword Searching: Searching which uses a few key, or important, words to retrieve books or articles on a specific topic or associated with those words in some way. The keywords could be used to search from the text of the document (if it is a full-text database), or some named Field (author, title, etc.) depending on the Database being used and the searcher's intent. Often useful for very new topics for which Controlled Vocabulary indexes will not have a subject term yet established. Searching by keyword often utilizes Boolean Searching.

LCCN: Acronym for Library of Congress Card Number; the number assigned to a bibliographic record for any item catalogued by the Library of Congress. It generally begins with a two-digit number representing the year in which the book was published (i.e., 95-1995 for an item published in 1995). Also referred to as the RID number.

LCSH: Acronym for Library of Congress Subject Headings; controlled vocabulary words which are used to describe the contents of works and are assigned consistently to pull like works together to facilitate retrieval.

Leaf: A single sheet of paper in a bound book; i.e., two pages.

Library of Congress Classification System: A classification system developed by the Library of Congress for its collection, and since adopted by most of the nation's colleges and universities. The system is particularly well-suited to large libraries because of its capacity for generating and accommodating new subject headings. An example of the Call Number for a book classified using the Library of Congress Classification System is: HD 1251 .I2 V36

Machine-readable data file: Information encoded and stored in a format that requires a machine to retrieve the information. Includes such media as magnetic tapes, magnetic discs, punched cards, etc.

Magazine: A Periodical containing news stories or articles on various subjects and written for general readership (as opposed to a scholarly or technical audience). See Also Journal.

MARC: Acronym for Machine-readable cataloging.

Microfiche: A small, flat sheet, usually 4x6 or 3x5 inches, of photographic film which contains micro images arranged in horizontal and vertical rows.

Microfilm: Photographic film showing micro images of publications, such as the contents of journals.

Microform: Refers to material (reports, articles, books, documents, etc.) recorded on photographic film at a greatly reduced size. Examples include Microfilm and Microfiche.

Monograph: A scholarly book on a single subject, class of subjects, or person. Within the library field, this term is often used for any non-serial publication. A more specific definition is a lengthy work on a particular subject or person, detailed in treatment and often containing bibliographies.

NASIG: North American Serials Interest Group, formed mid-1985 to discuss, resolve and communicate issues relating to serials management.

OCLC: Online Computer Library Center, located in Dublin, Ohio. A nonprofit, membership, library computer service and research organization.

Offprint: A copy of an article published in a periodical, specially reprinted for the author's use, but retaining the numbering of the issue from which it was taken. (From Harrod's...Glossary) Sometimes called a Separate. See Also Preprint, Reprint.

Online catalog: A Catalog in electronic (machine-readable) format and able to be accessed online. Also known as an ONLINE PUBLIC ACCESS COMPUTER (OPAC).

Packing slip: Usually enclosed with the items being shipped or attached to the outside of the package. May be a copy of the invoice or other notification, that indicates the date and number of items shipped and the invoice number, but does not include the prices.

Pamphlet: In present usage a pamphlet is an independent publication of 49 pages or fewer, bound in paper covers.

Peer-Reviewed Journal see Journal

Periodical: A publication that is produced at regular intervals, or "periodically", under the same title and is intended to appear indefinitely. Generally, the frequency is more often than annually such as weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc. See Also Magazine, Journal, Serial, Trade Journal, E-Journal.

Periodical Index: A subject, author, or title Index to a group of periodicals. Examples include the Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature, Social Sciences Index, and General Sciences Index.

Preprint: A portion of a work printed and issued before the publication of the complete work. A paper submitted at a conference which is published prior to the holding of the conference. (From Harrod's...Glossary) See Also Reprint, Offprint.

PROFORMA: A vendor report code for an item which the vendor had to prepay before they could order it. Also, an invoice type for an order prepaid by the Library.

Range: A row of book shelves, usually double-faced, anywhere in the library. Range is sometimes synonymous with Stack. See Also Rack, Shelving.

Recto: The right-hand page in an open book. Usually odd-numbered.

Reprint: Either 1) A book that has been printed or reproduced at a later date than the original printing but using the same type and the same content, or 2) A periodical article or a chapter in a book which is issued separately from the larger publication and at a later date. See Also Offprint, Preprint.

RLIN—the Research Libraries Information Network—is an internationally available bibliographic information system* used with RLG's Library Resources. For many years, research libraries, archival repositories, and special libraries have used RLIN for cataloging and authority work, archives and manuscripts processing, and interlibrary loan.

Scanner: A machine that digitizes the markings from a piece of paper or a page, creating an electronic image of the original.

Scholarly Journal see Journal.

Serial: Any publication issued in successive parts, appearing at intervals, usually regular ones, and, as a rule, intended to be continued indefinitely. The term includes Periodicals, newspapers, annuals, numbered monographic series and the proceedings, transactions and memoirs of societies. (From Harrod's...Glossary)

Series: A number of separate works, usually issued in succession, and usually related to one another in subject or form, issued by the same publisher, and in uniform style. The collective series title may appear at the head of the title page, on the half-title page, or on the cover.

Shelving: Collectively, the shelves upon which books and other library materials are stored. (From the ALA Glossary). See Also Rack, Range, Stack.

Stack: The shelves or bookcases on which the library's materials are stored. The plural, stacks, is often used. See Also Rack, Range, Shelving.

Standing order: A variation of the blanket order system. The supplier sends a very limited number of items to the library for purchase. Standing orders are usually used for a series of related items that are produced over a long period of time.

Style Manual: Special handbooks that illustrate the accepted forms for citing references in bibliographies, footnotes, and endnotes. Some style manuals are for general use. Others are published by professional associations as form guides for articles in journals in that field of knowledge and research.

Subject Heading: The word or phrase used to describe the subject content of a work. Also known as Descriptors. An alphabetical list of all the subject headings in a particular collection or Database with a description of the location of the work (page number, call number, citation, etc.), is the subject Index for that collection or database. Some indexes or databases use Controlled Vocabulary, and others use Natural Language.

Subject librarian: The librarian who is assigned the responsibility of approving items to be ordered from a specific subject account and gifts to be received in specific subjects. The librarian may also act as a liaison with faculty from that subject area.

Subscription: An agreement between a library and a publisher or vendor to supply a serial title (e.g. an annual, a quarterly, etc.) to be renewed and prepaid annually until canceled.

Superintendent of Documents Classification System: A system of arranging federal government publications in an alpha/ numerical order based on the name of the major issuing government department (such as Agriculture Department, Commerce Department, etc.). Often referred to as the SuDocs or SuDox Classification System. An example of a SuDocs number is: D4.16/3:8.

Thesaurus: When an index or database uses Controlled Vocabulary (a standardized word or phrase list), the thesaurus is an alphabetical listing of the terms currently in use. The thesaurus will also show relationships between terms such as synonymous or related terms, hierarchical arrangements (broader terms, narrower terms), and provide references from terms not currently in use to acceptable terms, including older words or phrases that are no longer used.

Thesis: A publication reporting original research, which is a requirement for some Masters degrees.

Trade Journal: A Periodical that publishes news and other items of interest for a particular trade or industry.

Truncation: The shortening of a word or phrase in an online search in order to retrieve variant forms of that word; it is helpful when you are not sure of spelling. The keystroke or truncation symbol is often referred to as a wild card.

Unabridged Dictionary see Dictionary.

Uniform title: The title chosen for cataloging purposes when a work has appeared under varying titles. The uniform title appears in the 240 tag of the marc record. Examples: "Love's labor's lost" by William Shakespeare, has a uniform title of "Love's labour's lost" (note the difference is in the spelling of labor). The sound recording "The three-cornered hat" by Manual de Falla, has a uniform title of "Sombrero de tres picos" as it was originally written in Spanish.

United States Government Printing Office (GPO): The entity which publishes the myriad of material produced by different agencies and organizations of the federal government. It is funded by Congress and prints/sells U.S. government publications until they are out of print. GPO provides free access to government publications through the Federal Depository Library Program.

 

Vendor: An organization whose business is to buy direct from the publishers. They are often able to offer libraries price discounts, free shipping, and approval plans.

Verso: The left-hand page in an open book. Usually even-numbered.

Volume: This word is used to describe two different materials: 1) A series of printed sheets, bound, typically, in book form, or 2) An arbitrary number of consecutive issues of a periodical.

Voucher: A form that verifies a business transaction as correct, authorizes its entry into the books, and approves payment of charges.

Weeding: Review of library materials by a subject librarian to determine if they are outdated or damaged and should be withdrawn from the collection.

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GLOSSARIES IN PRINT
Additional definitions can be found in the following two reference books:

The ALA Glossary of Library and Information Science. Ed. by Heartsill Young. Chicago, IL: American Library Association, 1983. Call No.: Z1006 .A48 1983

Harrod's Librarians' Glossary: 9,000 terms used in information management, library science, publishing, the book trades and archive management. 8th ed. Compiled by Ray Prytherch. Aldershot, Hants, England ; Brookfield, Vt., USA : Gower, c1990. Call No.: Z1006 .H32 1990

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OTHER LIBRARY GLOSSARIES ON THE INTERNET:

Boise State University Albertsons Library
Acquisitions Department Glossary

Ohio State University Libraries
Library Language

University of Michigan Library
Library Glossary

University of Southern Queensland Library, Australia
A Glossary of Terms Used in the Library

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