Abstract: A brief summary of a book, article, or other document.

Access: 1) Freedom or ability to obtain or make use of. 2) The action of going to or reaching.

Almanac: An annual publication containing statistical and general information relating to countries, personalities, events, and subjects.

AND: A Boolean operator that narrows a search by requiring both search terms to be in one document.

Annotate: To make critical or explanatory comments or notes.

Article: A nonfiction written piece by one or more people that is published as part of a larger unit like a newspaper, journal, or encyclopedia.

Atlas: A book of maps.

Barcode number: The 14-digit number appearing beneath the striped (bar) code found on the label attached to library material. This number is used to check out, check in, and renew all items.

Bibliographic database: A computer file that contains records describing and guiding one to the location of books or other documents.

Bibliography: 1) A list often with critical notes of works (books, articles, web sites, etc.) about a particular subject, period, or author. 2) A list of works used when writing a paper, article or book.

Biography: A history of a person's life.

Biographical dictionary: A work that provides brief information about the lives of many people.

Boolean algebra: A branch of symbolic logic that is similar to algebra, but instead of dealing with numerical relationships, it deals with logical relationships. An algebra named for George Boole, a nineteenth century mathematician.

Boolean operators: Typically AND, OR, and NOT, Boolean operators allow logical combinations of search words or phrases.

Bound periodicals: Periodical material issued in years past that is encased in hard covers like a book. At Otis, bound periodicals must be used within the library.

Browse: To casually look through a list (of names or subject terms on the OPAC) or a collection (of books in the library) in search of something of interest.

Call number: A combination of letters and numerals used to identify and locate an item on the shelf. A call number consists of the classification number followed by a letter/number combination (Cutter number) derived from the author's last name or the first word in the title, and may include a date.

Card catalog: A catalog in which entries are arranged systematically on cards.

Catalog: A list or file of descriptions of items with enough information to provide access to the items. For example: an auction catalog provides descriptions of items offered for sale at an auction; an exhibition catalog includes descriptions and usually images of the works in a particular exhibition; a library catalog, whether it's a card catalog or an online catalog (OPAC), gives descriptions of the items held by the library and information (usually the call number) that guides the user to their location.

Circulating collection: Library materials that are checked out for use outside the library. Non-circulating material (from Special Collections, and the Reference and Periodical sections) must be used within the library.

Circulation desk: A service desk where books and other materials are loaned to library users.

Chronology: An arrangement of events in the order of their occurrence in time; a time line.

Citation: Information necessary to identify a book, article, or other document; a complete citation usually includes author, title, name of journal (for an article) or publisher (for a book), and date of issue/publication. Citations in periodical indexes also include page numbers for the article and the volume number of the journal.

Classification: An arrangement in groups or categories according to established criteria. Libraries usually use either the Dewey Decimal or Library of Congress classification system. The classification code is shown as the first part of the call number.

Classify: To distribute into groups, classes, categories, or families that are marked by a common set of attributes.

Controlled vocabulary: Terms from an authority file or thesaurus such as LCSH that are used as subject headings or descriptors in a strict and standard way to ensure consistency.

Current periodicals: Periodical material that is recently issued. At Otis, current periodicals must be used within the library.

Database: A collection of logically related records or files that can be read by a computer. May be bibliographic, full-text, or numeric.

Dewey Decimal Classification system: A classification system devised by Melvil Dewey in 1876 and still used widely today, particularly in public libraries. Outline:

Dictionary: A book containing words arranged alphabetically along with information about their pronunciation and meaning.

Electronic format: Materials which are electronic, or computerized, in nature, such as compact discs (CDs), online catalogs, etc.

Encyclopedia: A work that contains information on all branches of knowledge usually in articles arranged alphabetically by subject. Also, a work that contains detailed information in articles about one particular subject.

Exhibition catalog: Usually a book-length publication issued by a museum or gallery to document a particular exhibition which includes descriptions and images of the works in the exhibition.

Field: The part of a database record that is used to store specific information such as the title, author, or subject of the item being described.

File: A collection of records in a database.

Full-text: The complete texts of journal articles, books, or newspapers available in machine-readable form.

Handbook: A book capable of being conveniently used for concise information about a particular subject.

Index: A list of subject terms arranged in alphabetical order which leads you to further information. Back-of-the-book indexes guide you to information within the book. In a set of encyclopedias, the index is often the last volume and directs you to further information wherever that information appears in the set. The index is a good place to begin searching because information often appears in many articles in addition to the main entry. (See also Periodical index.)

Information literacy: Knowing how to use computers and access information as well as the ability to critically evaluate that information and to reflect on the social, cultural and philosophical context of technology.

Internet: A worldwide network of computers.

Journal: A periodical that reports the current research, experimentation, or scholarship of a particular discipline or profession.

Keyword: A word in a record that may be used for retrieval. In many databases, this means any word (other than stop words) that occurs in the searchable fields of a record.

LCSH: Library of Congress Subject Headings. A thesaurus published by the Library of Congress that contains terms used as controlled vocabulary in subject fields. Searchers use it to find the accepted term for their subject of interest as well as to help them discover synonyms or related terms to use in their search strategy.

Library of Congress Classification system: The classification system developed by the Library of Congress and used by large research and academic libraries; we use the Library of Congress classification system at the Otis library. Outline:

A  General Works	B  Philosophy. Psychology.  Religion	C  Auxiliary Sciences of History
D  History (includes Travel)	E  America	F  United States. Canada. Latin America
G  Geography	H  Social Sciences	J  Political Science
K  Law	L  Education	M  Music
N  Fine Art	P  Language & Literature	Q  Science
R  Medicine	S  Agriculture	T  Technology
U  Military Science	V  Naval Science	Z  Books in General

Magazine: A periodical usually with illustrations that contains articles of interest to the general public.

Network: Computers that are connected together; those in the same or nearby buildings are called 'local area networks,' those that are further away are 'wide area networks,' and the network that connects computers across the world is called the Internet.

Nonprint format: A format other than print, such as videotapes and slides.

NOT: A Boolean operator that narrows a search by specifying that an entry is to be retrieved if it contains the first keyword but does not include the second.

OPAC: Online public access catalog. A library catalog based on and giving direct access to machine-readable cataloging records.

OR: A Boolean operator that broadens a search by allowing either search term to be present.

Oversize: Books that are too large for the regular shelves are kept in a section of the Library where the shelves are bigger.

Periodical: A serial publication that is issued at regular intervals; in other words, a certain period of time passes (a week, month, two months, etc.) before the next issue arrives. Includes magazines and journals.

Periodical index: Stand-alone publication in either print or electronic form which refers the user to magazine, journal, or newspaper articles.

Popular: Reflecting the taste, interest, or intelligence of the people at large.

Print format: Printed publications, in a format that is like a book.

Record: The description of an item (book, video, etc.) in a database file. A record is usually broken down into smaller units of information known as fields.

Reference book: A book that contains brief information about a subject.

Reference collection: The collection of books and other materials used frequently by people seeking information. Reference collections usually include encyclopedias, dictionaries, almanacs, bibliographies, handbooks, and periodical indexes and abstracts. Reference material must be used in the library.

Reference desk/librarian: The place and person where a library user goes to ask research questions.

Reserve materials: Books, videos, or other material that instructors wish to make available for their students' use in the library. At Otis, reserve materials are kept behind the circulation desk.

Scholarly: Concerned with academic study, especially research. Or material written by persons with advanced degrees.

Search strategy: An organized method used to retrieve information on a specific topic.

Search string: Two or more terms combined with the Boolean operators 'AND', 'OR,' or 'NOT' used to search for information in an electronic database.

Serial: A publication which is issued in parts that follow one another (as in a series) and which doesn't have an expected ending date; newspapers and periodicals are serials, as are some books that have a new issue every year (like Graphis Annual, or Artist's and Graphic Designer's Marketplace). Serial killers murder their victims one after another, in a series.

Special collections: Books that are kept under lock and key due to fragile condition, age, or value and may be used only under supervision within the library.

Stacks: Physical location in the library where the books are shelved. A library may have more than one set of stacks (Periodicals stacks, Reference stacks, etc.).

Stop words: Words that appear so often in database records that the keyword search system does not search for them. For example, a, an, the, etc. Subject headings, descriptors, or terms Words or phrases from an authority file or thesaurus such a LCSH included in the record to describe what an item is about. Searching the subject headings in a database is more specific than searching by keyword, and is one way to narrow your search.

Synonyms: Two or more words that have the same meaning.

Thesaurus: A list of terms in a controlled vocabulary that can be used when searching electronic databases. Often includes hierarchical relationships between terms and links, or cross references, from an unused term to the accepted term.

Truncate: To shorten a search term in order to get all terms with the same root or to get both the singular and plural forms of a word. In the Otis OPAC, truncation is automatic (for example, typing in 'paint' would bring up records that include the words paint, paints, painting, paintings, painter, painters; to just search for the term paint, type an explanation point after the word: 'paint!'); in other systems a symbol (often a ?) must be typed.

Venn diagrams: A graphical method of sorting out the logical relationships between search terms with the use of 'AND,' 'OR,' and 'NOT' Boolean operators.

WWW: World Wide Web. A hypermedia system that uses the Internet to access computers containing millions of hypertext documents.