Glossary of Library and Research Terms
- Abstract: a brief, objective summary of the essential content of a book, article, speech, report, dissertation, or other work that presents the main points in the same order as the original.
- Archives: an organized collection of the noncurrent records of the activities of a business, government, organization, institution, or other corporate body, or the personal papers of one or more individuals, families, or groups, retained permanently... for their permanent historical, information, evidential, legal, administrative or monetary value.
- Boolean: a system of logic developed by the English mathematician George Boole (1815-64) that allows the user to combine words or phrases representing significant concepts in a keywords search of an online catalog or database.
- Catalog: a comprehensive list of the books, periodicals, maps, and other materials in a given collection, arranged in systematic order to facilitate retrieval (usually alphabetically by author, title and/or subject).
- Catalog record: the screen display that represents most fully a specific edition of a work, including elements of description and access points...as well as information about the holdings of the local library (copies, location, call number, status, etc.)
- Circulation desk: the service point at which books and other materials are checked in and out of a library, usually a long counter located near the entrance or exit.
- Citation: a written reference to a specific work or portion of a work (book, article, dissertation, report, music composition, etc. by a particular author, editor, composer, etc., that clearly identifies the document in which the work is to be found.
- Database: a large, regularly updated file of digitized information (bibliographic records, abstracts, full-text documents, directory entries, images, statistics, etc.) related to a specific subject or field, consisting of records of uniform format organized for ease and speed of search and retrieval.
- Digital collection: a collection of library or archival materials converted into machine readable format for preservation or to provide electronic access.
- Full-text: an electronic resource that provides the entire text of a single work or of articles in one or more journals, magazines, and/or newspapers, besides the citation and abstract of the content.
- Hold: when a book or other item is currently on loan, most libraries permit another borrow to place a "hold" on it by contacting the circulation desk [you can do this online in BearCat]. The patron who has the item checked out will not be permitted to renew it, and the person placing the "hold" will be entitled to check it out after it has been returned.
- Interlibrary loan: when a book or other item needed by a registered borrower is checked out, unavailable for some other reason, or not owned by the library, a patron may request that it be borrowed from another library by filling out an interlibrary loan request form... electronically via the library's Web site [at Baylor, use the OsoFast system].
- Jargon: the specialized vocabulary and idioms of a group of people engaged in the same activity or line of work.
- Literature review: a comprehensive survey of the works published in a particular field of study or line of research, usually over a specific period of time, in the form of an in-depth, critical bibliographic essay or annotated list in which attention is drawn to the most significant works.
- Microform: a generic term for a highly reduced photographic copy of text and/or images stored on a translucent medium. Microforms can be original editions or reproductions. Reader-printer machines are required to view and make hard copies.
- Peer-review: The process in which the author of a book, article, etc. submits his or her work to experts in the field for critical evaluation, usually prior to publication, a standard procedure in scholarly publishing.
- Periodical: a publication issued more than once, generally at regular stated intervals of less than a year. This category includes magazines, journals and newsletters.
- Primary source: In scholarship, a document or record containing firsthand information or original data on a topic. Primary sources include original manuscripts, articles report original research or thought, diaries, memoirs, letters, journals, photographs, drawings, posters, film footage, sheet music, songs, interviews, government documents, public records, eyewitness accounts, newspaper clippings, etc.
- Reserves: in academic libraries, materials given a shorter loan period (one-hour, three-hour, overnight, three-day, etc.) for a limited period of time (usually one term or semester) at the request of the instructor, to ensure that all the students enrolled in a course have an opportunity to use them. Fines charged for overdue reserve items are higher than for materials not on reserve to encourage prompt return.
- Subject headings: the most specific word or phrase that describes the subject, or one of the subjects of a work, selected from a list of preferred terms.
