abstract: a short summary of an article or book; abstracts are provided along with citation information in many periodical indexes, and may be written by either the paper's author or an indexer.

access point: in a catalog or index, a heading that may be used to find information on an item; common access points include author, title, and assigned subject headings.

Adobe Acrobat Reader: a program for viewing PDF files, used in many full-text electronic journals. The reader program is free, and if you do not have it on your machine when it is needed to access an article, instructions for downloading it will usually appear on your screen.

annotation: a note on a catalog card or bibliography, describing or evaluating the publication.

article: 1. a contribution, by one or more authors, published in a periodical.
2. a, an, the, and their equivalents in other languages (der, la, los...). In library practice, leading articles are dropped from titles in alphabetized lists.

bibliographic database: an electronic version of a catalog or index. A bibliographic database allows the user to identify publications by author, subject, title, or other search terms. It generally provides at least a full citation to the item, and often other information such as abstracts and assigned subject headings.

bibliographic citation: (synonym for bibliographic reference) identifying information about a publication, used in catalogs and indexes as well as in lists of "literature cited" or "references" in scholarly publications. Formats vary, but a book citation generally includes at least information on the author, title, publisher, and date of publication; an article citation includes author, title, date, and information on the periodical in which it was published.

bibliography: 1) a list of books or articles which are related in some way, for example, about a particular subject (such as Guide to the Literature of the Zoological Sciences) or written by a specific author (such as a Bibliographical Checklist and Index to the Published Writings of Albert Einstein ).
2) the study of books as physical entities.

boolean operator: conjunctions AND, OR, and NOT in logical expressions; named for mathematician George Boole (1815-1864). In library usage, refers to these conjunctions in electronic search criteria.

browser: a program that accesses the World Wide Web and reads hypertext, e.g. Netscape or Exporer.

call number: an alphanumeric code which identifies an item in the library collection and indicates its location on the shelves. Call numbers are listed in the catalog and marked on the book's spine label. Most items in Hunter have Library of Congress (LC) call numbers; juvenile materials and some older items have Dewey Decimal (DDC) call
numbers.

catalog: indicates what a particular library owns be it books, journals, music CDs, videos or theses.

circulating: library material that may be checked out by patrons.

citation: the pertinent information needed to find the full text of a publication. Citations are provided in bibliographies, indexes, and the lists of references in scholarly works.
Citation formats vary according to field of study and/or requirements of particular
publications (see style guide .) A book citation generally includes: author(s), title, publisher, date. A citation of an article in a periodical generally includes: author(s), article title, source journal title, volume, pages, and date.

database: a standardized collection of information in computerized format, searchable by various parameters; in libraries often refers to electronic catalogs and indexes.

descriptor: in electronic indexes, a subject heading assigned to an item by the indexers.

dissertation: a treatise (thesis) written by a candidate for a Ph.D. Compare with master's thesis.

hit: an item identified or retrieved in a catalog or index search; many indexes will show the number of hits for a search on the screen before actually displaying the citations or
documents retrieved, to allow the user to revise the search. A false hit is an item
retrieved by the search statement which is not actually relevant or useful to the user.

HTML: Hyper Text Markup Language; the coding syntax used to write WWW documents, which are read by browsers.

HTTP: Hyper Text Transfer Protocol; the WWW protocol that performs the request and
retrieve functions of a server. Commonly seen as the first part of a website address.

hyperlink: a hypertext link; a graphic or text string which, when clicked, opens a new web page or jumps to a new location in the current page.

icon: a pictorial image used in a graphical user interface to represent a program, a command, a link to a Web page, etc.

index: a list or systematic guide to the contents of a set of data, such as a periodical index or an index in a book.

journal: a periodical publication in which researchers report the results of their work to their peer community; compare with magazine. Articles are reviewed by an editorial board of scholars in the field prior to acceptance for publication (see also refereed journal), and generally include an abstract and numerous citations to previous work. The writing style in journals is formal rather than engaging, and journals generally have little or no advertising or glossy, catchy graphics and illustrations. Journals often have pages numbered continuously through the several issues of a given volume (for example, v.15 #1 has pages 1-223; v.15 #2 runs from p.224-587, and so forth to the last issue of the volume).

keyword: a significant word in the title, abstract or text of a work; some periodical indexes identify keywords in a separate data field, so that they can be searched without
searching the full text of the document. Some indexes use such keywords in place of assigning standard subject headings to items.

manuscript:  1. a work written by hand (not printed on a press).  2. in archives, archival material arranged and preserved intact.

microfiche: A small sheet (4" x 6") containing microfilmed images of pages, read with a microfilm reader. Many pages of text fit onto a single fiche, and their major advantage is in saving shelf space. Many government documents are issued in fiche format.

microfilm: microphotographs of printed material, on a reel of cellulose film, viewed using a microfilm reader/printer. Items in awkward or frail formats (such as newsprint) and popular magazines subject to damage from heavy use are often purchased in microfilm format rather than being bound between hard covers.

monograph: a non-serial work, complete in one part or set, usually on a narrowly defined single topic. For example, a book or pamphlet (as opposed to a periodical).

OPAC: Online Public Access Catalog; a computerized library catalog, or the portion of the catalog available for patron use.

refereed journal: a journal in which articles have been evaluated by an independent expert in the field of research before acceptance for publication.

reference: an indication of where to find specific information, for example the references cited in scholarly work, or reference assistance from library staff.

serials: any publication issued in successive parts, usually (though not always) at regular intervals, and intended to be continued indefinitely. Serials include: periodicals, newspapers, magazines, annuals, yearbooks, journals, memoirs, proceedings, transactions, and numbered monographic series.

style guide: a publication which specifies details of writing style required by a particular publishing house or professional organization, including such matters as punctuation, capitalization, and rules for citing references.

theses: often refers to the treatises written by candidates for the Master's Degree, as distinct from doctoral dissertations.

URL: Uniform Resource Locator; an address that specifies the location of a file on the Internet (e.g. http://library.hunter.cuny.edu)

verso: the left-hand page of a book, usually with even-numbered pages. Opposite of recto (and much more commonly-used term). The copyright date of a book is found on the verso (back) of the title page.

*Adapted from the University of Utah, Marriott Library resource, "Glossary of Common Library Terms." http://www.lib.utah.edu/science/glossary.html