Library Lingo:
Some Common Library Terms Defined

Abstract

Summary of an article or book.

Annotation

A critical or explanatory note added as a comment or explanation that describes or evaluates contents.

Archives

Public records or historical documents. Also the place where such records and documents are stored. Magazine and newspaper databases may ask if you wish to search their "archives". A normal search may cover two years, and then if you want to read older articles, you need to search the archives.

Bibliography

A list of references to books, articles, electronic sources, etc. on a particular subject or by a particular author. A list of references cited by an author at the end of an article or book, or a student at the end of a research report or paper.

Biography

A written summary of a person’s life.

Boolean or Boolean Operators or Boolean Searching

Terms such as “and”, “or” and “not” used in searching databases. For example: violence and television (want to find both words) violence not television (want to find violence only) television or media (don’t care, will accept either term).

Call Number

A unique combination of numbers and letters (like an address) that is assigned to an item in the library collection. Items are arranged on the book shelves by call number. Items or books with the same or similar call numbers are about the same topic.

CheckOut Desk or Circulation Desk

A desk where library materials are borrowed and returned.

Citation

Information which fully identifies a publication. A complete citation usually includes author, title, name of journal (if the citation is to an article), or publisher (if to a book), and date. Often pages, volumes and other information will be included in a citation. If you would like to see exactly how to write a citation, Duke University has prepared a very helpful site: http://www.lib.duke.edu/libguide/works_cited"

Current Periodicals

Recent issues of a journal or magazine published during the last/current year.

Edition

A version of a book. A revised or new edition indicates that the text has been changed or new material added.

Editor

The person responsible for compiling and organizing a book or periodical issue that is written by several authors.

Editorial

A newspaper or magazine article that gives the opinions of the editors or publishers. Usually editorials are published in newspapers or magazines. An opinion, not necessarily "fact".

Full-text

When the whole (newspaper or magazine) article is available on computer, or included right in the index. You can just print out the article, or send it to your email box, instead of having to go find the magazine in the library and photocopy the article. Full text can also refer to books. By limiting a search to “full text” the index will only retrieve those articles that are available in their entirety.

Government Documents

Publications of international, U.S. Federal, state, and local governments. These publications include hearings reports, treaties, periodicals, and statistics (U.S. Census).

Hold

A library user may place a hold on a book checked out to another person. This ensures that the person placing the hold will be next in line to receive the book when it is returned.

Index

A reference tool that lists (by author, title, or subject) items in a database or book.

Interlibrary Loan (ILL)

Exchange of books or periodical articles between libraries for a brief period. Using ILL, you can borrow library materials not owned by De Anza from other libraries. Look at the De Anza College Library website for a link to borrowing materials through Interlibrary Loan.

Journal

A publication that contains scholarly articles written by professors, researchers or experts in a subject area. Different from popular magazines where articles are usually shorter and written in non-technical language.

Library Catalog

Library catalogs tell users what books and other non-print media a library owns. You may search library catalogs by author, title, or subject.

Magazine

A popular periodical usually read for pleasure or to keep up with current events.

Media

Sometimes called non-print media, these are films, DVDs, video tapes, audio tapes, and other audio-visual materials that require the use of special listening or viewing equipment.

Microforms: microfilm, microfiche

Microfiche and microfilm, are two types of microforms used to store newspaper or magazine articles. You need a microfilm reader to view these.

Oversized, Oversized Collection, Oversized Books

Books that are too large to be shelved in the regular stacks and to save room are kept together in an "oversized collection." Many art books are large and kept in the oversize collection.

Periodical Citation

See citation above.

Periodicals

Materials published at regular intervals -- monthly, weekly, daily -- such as magazines, journals, and newspapers.

Periodical Database (Online)

An access tool that locates and lists articles which have appeared in journals, magazines, or newspapers that is organized by subject. Commercial periodical databases provide author, title, name of periodical, volume, pages and date of publication. The full text article may also be provided. Most popular at De Anza College Library are the Ebscohost and Infotrac databases that index magazine articles and the Proquest database used for newspaper articles.

Periodical Indexes

If you would like to read magazine or newspaper articles on a particular topic, instead of looking though a bunch of print copies, use an index. The most common periodical indexes are computerized. When a searcher enters a topic or key subject words, a list a articles will appear. In addition to "indexing" many online periodical indexes provide the entire article for printing or e-mailing.

Plagiarism

Using another person's work as your own without giving credit to the original author.

Primary source

Original information such as diaries, speeches, autobiographies. No "middle person" has edited the original work.

Reference Books

The most frequently used reference books include encyclopedias, dictionaries, encyclopedias, biographical sources, statistical sources, and atlases which are "books" of maps. These are usually not read "cover to cover" but are used to locate brief bits of information.

Reference Collection

Libraries like to keep all the reference books (dictionaries, encyclopedias, etc.) togther. Reference books do not check out but are used only in the library. Hopefully you will see a "reference librarian" working near the Reference Collection who can assist with library and research questions.

Renewal

An extension of the loan period for checked out library materials.

Reserves

A collection of books or other materials that an instructor has brought to the library for use by students in a particular class. These are available for short term loans, i.e. 2 hours or 3 days. Sometimes library users are confused by the following three words:

Reference: books, or a librarian, or collection or books.

Reserve: items placed on short term loan by an instructor.

Stacks

Stacks -- a library term for book shelves.

Style Manual

A guide which provides formats for typing footnotes and bibliographies. MLA (Modern Language Association) and APA (American Psychological Association) are two popular styles for preparing bibliographies. A very useful website has been prepared by Duke University: http://www.lib.duke.edu/libguide/works_cited

Subject Heading

A word or phrase used to find materials on a specific topic in a catalog or periodical index.

Thesaurus

A book of synonyms, often including related and contrasting words and antonyms.

URL

Uniform Resource Locator. A unique address for every item on the Internet. Example: http://www.deanza.edu