2. About this Tutorial
Students:
This tutorial will:
• Help you understand the terms librarians use to describe parts of
the library and the information resources available to you.
• Help you understand the difference between similar types of
resources and how they might be used in your research.
Faculty:
This tutorial was created using Microsoft PowerPoint 2007.
This tutorial will helps student understand jargon used in libraries and
help clarify difference between various information sources.
This tutorial meets the following ACRL standards:
2.1b

3. What to watch for…
Notes –
These are to let you know
there is important information
you need to know about what
is being covered.

4. janeheller.mlblogs.com
Sometimes libraries and librarians
use terminology that can be
confusing to most people.
We often call this “library jargon.”
Use the terms on the following
pages to better understand “library
jargon.”
Jargon: This term indicates language that is used by a group, profession, or culture,
especially when the words and phrases are not understood or used by other people.

5. Abstract:
For most people, abstract is a kind of art work
which can be difficult to understand and
appreciate. But this is not the case when it
comes to library materials.
In the library an abstract is a brief summary
of an article. Abstracts can save you time by
helping you identify the best articles on your
topic without having to read the whole article
first. Below is an example of an abstract of a
journal article.

6. Bibliography:
A bibliography is a list of the
sources an author used when
writing a book, article or
essay. It is found at the end of
written works.
If you find a great article and
want to locate more
information about the topic
you should check the
bibliography.
Bibliographies are also known
as lists of references or
works cited.

7. Boolean Searching:
Sometimes when you search for information on the
Internet or in an electronic database, you must search
using various combinations of words.
For example, if you were looking for information on the
relationship between poverty and drug abuse, you’d
have to combine the search terms:
This can be one of the more difficult
research concepts to understand, but
Drug once you understand how it works, it
Poverty really helps to make your searches
Abuse more effective.
This type of searching is called
Boolean searching or Boolean
Logic. It is a great way to improve
your search results.

8. Boolean logic
consists of three
logical operators:
– AND
– OR
– NOT
Freshman Let’s look at these individually
to better understand how
each of them work in a search
and what results they return.
College Success

9. OR
Question: I would like information about college or university life.
College University The red area
The blue area
represents search represents search
results that contain results that contain
only the word only the word
College. University.
The overlapping area represents
search results that contain both
College and University.
This will retrieve records with AT LEAST ONE of the search terms. We are
searching on the terms college and also university because either of these
words might be relevant.
OR is most commonly used to search for synonymous terms or concepts.

10. AND
Question: I'm interested in the relationship between poverty and crime.
Poverty Crime
This search retrieves only records in which BOTH of the search terms are present.
This is shown by the overlapping green area of the two circles which represent
all the records that contain both search terms, "poverty" and "crime"
Notice how we do not retrieve any records with only "poverty" or only "crime.”

11. NOT
Question: I want information about cats,
but I don't want to see anything about dogs.
In this search, we retrieve records in which ONLY ONE
of the terms is present, the one we have selected.
Cats Dogs
The blue shaded area with No records are retrieved in
the word cats represents the area overlapping the two
all the records containing circles where the word "dogs"
the word "cats,” but not appears, even if the word
dogs. "cats" appears there too.

12. The more terms or concepts we combine in a search using OR ,
the more results we will retrieve.
Search terms Results
college 396,482
College University
university 590,791
college OR university 819,214
college OR university
College
Search terms Results
college 396,482
university 590,791
University Campus college OR university 819,214
college OR university OR campus 929,677
college OR university OR campus

13. The more terms or concepts we combine in a search using AND,
the FEWER results we will retrieve.
Search terms Results
poverty 76,342 Poverty Crime
crime 348,252
poverty AND crime 12,998
Poverty AND Crime
Poverty
Search terms Results
poverty 76,342
crime 348,252
Crime Gender poverty AND crime 12,998
poverty AND crime AND gender 1,220
college AND university AND campus

14. Browsers:
A browser is a program that lets you view HTML
documents or webpages. These are programs that
translate all the computer code into the words and
images that you see when you surf the web.
Did you know that the World Wide
Web is just a small part of the
Internet? In fact the World Wide
Web was considered one of the
first browsers ever invented.

15. Citation Styles:
Citations provide important information about articles, books, websites, and
other important information you use in your research. A citation style is the way
in which you format this information. There are 3 main citation styles used in
university classes:
• MLA (Modern Language Association)
• APA (American Psychological Association)
• Chicago Manual of Style
Citations of articles often include the author, title, magazine or journal name,
page numbers and publication information. Citations of documents found online
also include a URL and the day the information was accessed.
Below are some examples of APA style:
Book: Dixon, Suzanne. (1992) The Roman Family. Baltimore: Johns
Hopkins University Press.
Online Article: Wiltshire, R. D. (2006, May 5). Changing thinking patterns to reduce
depression. Psychology For the Future, 3, Article 0012. Retrieved March
15, 2007, from http://www.psychologyforthefuture.org/articles/art0012.html

16. Fields:
Whether searching Google or an
EBSCOhost database, the place you
enter your search term(s) is called a
A simple Google search field. field. Some searches let you identify
what kind of field you want to search in,
such as author, title, subject or text.
Multiple search fields…
With specific identifiers
to narrow your search.

17. Full-Text:
When the complete electronic text of an article is available
it is indicated by a full-text icon. Some databases, such as
JSTOR and EBSCOhost, provide entire articles online.

18. Interlibrary Loan (ILL):
Sometimes the library may not have the materials you need. Many of the
university libraries are connected through an interlibrary loan service. This
means we can borrow a book or request a copy of an article that is available
in another library if we don’t have it.
Starting from the library
home page, follow the
links to the ILL form to
request materials not
available in our library.

19. Microforms:
Storing old copies of magazines
and newspapers can take up a
lot of space in a library, so older
issues are photographed and
stored on a microform. These are
usually called microfilm or
microfiche.
This allows a library to store a
large amount of information in
a small amount of space.
Reader-printer machines
which allow you to view and
make copies of microforms
are available on the second
floor of the library.

20. Periodicals:
Publications which are issued at least
twice a year, including journals,
magazines, and newspapers, are called
periodicals. Linscheid Library has two
sections of periodicals.
“Current periodicals” are those which
have recently arrived, usually within the
last 6 months. These are shelved by title.
“Bound periodicals” are those which
have been bound into a volume like a
book. These are shelved by call number.
Many periodicals are also available
electronically in the library databases.

21. Reference Materials:
Books or electronic resources providing
facts, statistics, bibliographies, background
information, or other specific pieces of
information are called reference
materials.
Examples include almanacs, atlases,
dictionaries, encyclopedias, handbooks, and
indexes.
The print versions of these materials may be
consulted in the library, but may not be borrowed
from the library.

22. In this tutorial you learned
some common library
terminology or jargon.
Thank you for taking
the time to look at this
Glossary of Library Terms!