May 12th 2008 | Complete Hours
- W.E.B. Du Bois Library • OPEN 24 hours
- Integrated Sciences and Engineering Library (ISEL) • 8:00 am - 9:00 pm
- Learning Commons • OPEN 24 hours
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May 12th 2008 | Complete Hours
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| Abstract | A one-paragraph, objective summary of an article, book, or other work. |
| Acquisitions | The department in the Library that is responsible for ordering, paying for, and initial processing of library materials. |
| Annotation | A brief subjective or evaluative paragraph recorded after a description of an item in a bibliography or other list. Often it is designed to assist researchers using the bibliography in discriminating between entries that are similar or related in some way. |
| Archives | Public or private records or historical documents, or the department or facility where these materials are processed, stored, and used. |
| Authentication | A process whereby software allows members of an eligible population to have access to a computer network, secure area, or online database. Either the IP address of the user's machine or his/her username and password (OIT account) are listed in the software as authorized. |
| Barcode | A 14-digit number listed on your UMass student ID or UCard preceeded by the letters Libr: that serves as your library identifier for checking out materials and ordering other library services such Request Items and Interlibrary Loans. |
| Bibliographic Record | A description of an item. The information in a bibliographic record varies depending on the item being described. For a book, it contains information such as title, author, publisher, and date and place of publication. |
| Bibliography | A list of citations to written materials that is included at the end of a book, article, chapter, presentation, report, or dissertation. A bibliography can be an entire book of citations on a particular topic or author. |
| Bindery | Books with flimsy covers, items needing repair, and the loose issues of periodicals are sent to a company that binds and labels them. Items are not available for the 1-3 weeks they are at the bindery. |
| Boolean Operators | The logical operators (AND, OR, NOT) are used to construct complex searches in online databases to produce more precise results. |
| Bound Periodicals | Several issues of a periodical are joined together in order into a single volume. In our Library, all bound periodicals are in the Book Stacks interfiled with the books of that call number. |
| Browser | A software program (such as Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer) used to display web pages stored on computers connected to the Internet. |
| Call Number | The sequence of letters, numbers, and symbols assigned to and marked on the spine of an item in a library or collection that serves as its unique shelf address and allows it to be located. Call numbers are assigned according to a classification system that may be based on the item's subject. |
| Read call numbers one line at a time; on the third line read the number as a decimal. The correct sequence on the shelf is: | |
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| Carrel | Private study rooms in the library for graduate students, assigned for the semester or longer. See the secretary in your academic department for a carrel assignment. |
| Check
out or Charge out |
The process of borrowing materials to take out of the Library. The patron presents the material and a student ID or library card to the Charge (Circulation) desk or the Self-Check machine for lending. |
| Circulation | The borrowing of books. Most books circulate, but reference books and many periodicals do not. Bring books from the stacks to the Circulation desk and show your UCard. The loan period is four weeks for most users, and semester-long for doctoral students, faculty and staff. However, if someone else needs the book, it may be recalled to the Library after three weeks. |
| Circulation Desk | One or more desks near the Entrance/Exit to the Library where users may check out, pick-up, renew, or return materials with the assistance of a staff member. |
| Citation | A reference or listing of the key pieces of information about a work that make it possible to identify and locate it again. The elements of a citation normally include author, title, place of publication, publisher, and date of publication for a book; and journal title, volume, number, issue, year, and page numbers for an article. The exact form of the citation depends on the academic discipline; ask your professor. A group of citations are collected in a bibliography. When you search in an index or database, you retrieve citations. |
| Classification System | The schema by which a collection of items is organized. Most public libraries use the Dewey Decimal System to organize their materials. Most college and university libraries (including UMass Amherst) use the Library of Congress Classification System for most materials. We use the Su Docs Classification to organize our U.S. Government Documents. |
| Collection
Development or Selection |
The process of selecting which materials to add to the Library collection to develop it. Subject specialist librarians are assigned to select or collect materials in their areas of expertise. |
| Controlled
Vocabulary or Subject Headings |
A semi-permanent list of subjects from which you pick the subject to describe an item when cataloging. For example, the catalog or a database might apply the subject family violence to describe all items on the topics of child abuse, domestic abuse, and domestic violence. When searching, you have to be informed (consult the Library of Congress Subject Headings we use to assign subjects to our materials) to look for these items using the subject family violence. Various databases and library catalogs do this in various ways. |
| Current Periodicals | The recent, unbound issues of a periodical, serial, or newspaper. Current issues are stored in the Periodicals/Microforms Room on the Main level of the W.E.B. Du Bois Library. After 6 months to 1 year, the loose issues are collected and sent to the bindery to become bound volumes. The Integrated Sciences & Engineering Library also has current periodicals. |
| Databases
or Electronic Resources |
Collections of data.
The Library subscribes to a wide variety of online databases, which the
user connects to by computer over the Internet. Some of these vendors
like Gale (Infotrac) create their own databases, while some just provide
the software and connection to databases created by other organizations.
The Library's databases are largely journal article databases (some full-text),
while some are online versions of reference books and other materials.
Periodical indexes -- lists of citations to periodical articles -- which can be searched by subject, author, journal, date, etc. Databases usually cover a particular type of periodicals, for example newspapers (Lexis Nexis) or sociology journals (Sociological Abstracts) or journals from University presses (Project Muse). They can be used at PC’s in the libraries, or at http://www.library.umass.edu/. Some list citations only, some include short summaries (abstracts) of articles, and some contain the full-text of some articles. |
| Depository | The Library signs an agreement to store, maintain, and make available to the public materials sent to it by government bodies. The W.E.B. Du Bois Library is an 85% depository for U.S. Government Documents and a 100% depository for Massachusetts state documents. |
| Document Delivery | A service provided by the Library through another vendor that delivers articles and reports directly to the patron electronically or by fax, mail, pick-up, or delivery. |
| Edition | All copies of a book printed at any time from the same setting of type. Includes impressions, issues, and printings. 1 |
| Folio | A book or pamphlet created by folding large sheets of paper only once. This results in an oversized book that must be shelved in a different location on the floor with the other books in that call number span. |
| Full-text | When the entire content of an article, chapter, book, or other item is provided online, it is referred to as full-text. |
| Government Documents | Monographs, serial publications, reports, communications; any official publication of a governmental agency.2 |
| Index | A list, in alphanumeric order, of the topics or items in a document or a database, usually with reference to the location(s) where they may be found. An index may be limited to a particular range or field of references, such as an author or subject index. |
| Innovative
Interfaces, Inc. |
The vendor for the Five Colleges Library Systems, also referred to as III. Two servers, which hold the UMass Amherst and Four Colleges systems, live in the W.E.B. Du Bois Library. Each system is a database of records describing the materials the Libraries own, along with records containing patron information, as well as the software used to access and manipulate those records. |
| Interlibrary Loan (ILL) | A service that obtains books, photocopies, microfiche, dissertations, and other materials not owned by the UMass Libraries from other libraries. Patrons pick-up returnable materials ordered at the Circulation Desk. ILLiad is the name of the software UMass Amherst Libraries uses to process and track ILL requests. |
| International
Standard Book Number (ISBN) |
A unique, 10-digit number which identifies one title or edition from a specific publisher. |
| International
Standard Serial Number |
An internationally-accepted code which uniquely identifies a serial publication.Consists of eight digits divided in the middle by a hyphen. Most citations to an article in databases or indexes provide this number in the record. The Interlibrary Loan (ILLiad) form asks for this number when you are requesting an article. |
| Item Record | Records in our Library Catalog, which hold information such as an item's location(s), years, and volumes owned. |
| Journal | A periodical on a specialized topic often issued by a professional publisher or society for a limited audience. Articles in journals are normally written by scholars, researchers, or experts in a field and often describe research projects along with their results and conclusions. |
| Keyword | Instead of using subject searching with a controlled vocabulary describing the topics of a document, keyword searching looks for your requested term everywhere in a record or document. |
| Library Catalog | 1). The online system
containing records for all of the items held by the UMass Amherst Libraries.
Materials are in all formats and include Internet-based resources as well
as physical items. The vendor of our Library Catalog
(and that of the Four Colleges) is Innovative Interfaces.
2). A database that
lists and gives call numbers for books and journals owned by UMass and
the Four Colleges. Search for books by author,
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| Library of Congress Classification | The classification system used to organize most of the materials in our Library. |
| Library
of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) |
Book's subjects are described in brief phrases taken from a long list called the Library of Congress Subject Headings, which appears in a set of thick, red volumes. The current set sits on the bookcase behind the Reference Desk on the Main level of the W.E.B. Du Bois Library. LCSH also lists the general call number for the subject heading. A subject search in the library catalog finds all books to which that subject heading was given. |
| Manuscript | A composition that is handwritten or typed rather than printed. |
| Microform(s) | Printed (text) items that have been photographically reduced in size and stored on plastic 4" X 6" sheets (microfiche), long rolls (microfilm), or white opaque cards (microcards). They conserve space. Special equipment is required to magnify them for viewing and printing. Most of the microforms in the UMass Amherst Libraries collections are in the Periodicals/Microforms Room and area on the Main level of the W.E.B. Du Bois Library. |
| OIT Computer Account | Call the Office of Information Technologies at 545-9400 to set up this account, which includes email, Internet access, use of computer labs with word processing software, printing, and remote access to library databases. |
| Patron | Common term for a library user. Some libraries use the term client. |
| Periodical | Publications issued
in successive parts at regular intervals -- daily, weekly, monthly --
and intended to be published indefinitely, including journals, magazines,
and newspapers. Current periodicals are ones that have
arrived recently. Back issues may be availabe as bound periodicals, in
microform, or online through Library subscriptions. Bound
periodicals are back issues, which have been sent to a book bindery,
covered with a binding, and placed in the book stacks
in call number order. 3
To find periodical articles by subject, use a periodical index database. Then, to find the periodical at UMass, use the journal title search in the Library Catalog. A periodical is a serial, but not all serials are periodicals. Back issues may be available in bound volumes (in call number order), |
| Record | Usually a brief description of an item. Similar to an address book entry, records have fields which perform various functions in the same way that an address book entry may have fields for phone number, birthday, street address, etc. |
| Reference Service | The assistance given by general or subject specialist librarians to a library patron to locate information or resources. Types and levels of service vary based on the category of patron, the needs of the patron, and the complexity of the question. Reference Service is available at the Reference Desk, by consultation, by phone, over email, or through a chat session. |
| Reserve(s) | Materials from the Library collections or a faculty member's personal collection that are placed in a special area of the Library where they can be used by a large number of students for short periods with high fines if they are not returned punctually. Many reserve materials are specifically identified by the instructor of a course for all the students taking that class to read or use. Heavily used materials like resume books and test preparation manuals are also kept on Reserve. Some reserve items cannot be taken from the Library, but patrons may photocopy from them. Some reserve materials are available online to students in a particular course. |
| Serial | A serial is defined as a publication in any medium issued as parts bearing numerical or chronological designation and intended to be continued indefinitely. Serials include periodicals, newspapers, annuals (reports, yearbooks, etc.), the journals, memoirs, proceedings, transactions, etc. of societies, and numbered monographic series. 4 Books for which a new edition comes out each year, such as almancs and yearbooks, are also serials. |
| Special Collections | Special Collections is the department within the Library that collects, processes, organizes, maintains, and assists patrons with the use of specialized collections that are uniquely held at UMass Amherst Libraries. This department also houses Archives and is responsible for the Map Collection. |
| Stacks | The rows of sections or ranges of shelving that hold the materials throughout the Library. “Open stacks,” almost universal in the U.S., means the user goes to the stacks and locates the book him/herself, by call number. |
| Stop Words | Words which are ignored in indexing and searching because they are too common. Stop words vary from index to index, but normally include articles at the beginning of a title. |
| Su Docs Classification | The Superintendent of Documents classification system is used to organize U.S. federal documents by the issuing body. |
| Subjects | The main topics covered in a document or database. Subjects are usually part of a controlled vocabulary or set of subject headings. |
| Terminal | Equipment that can send and receive messages, but does not contain a Central Processing Unit (which a PC has) or a hard-drive. |
| Truncation | Dropping the ending (after the root) to a word used as a search term in a database or index to retrieve all alternative endings. For example, typing in manag? pulls up manage, managing, management, manager, etc. The symbol that results in truncation varies by database. |
| UCard | The student identification card, called a UCard, also serves as your library card. It allows you to borrow books from UMass and Five College libraries. It can also be used as a debit card to pay for copies and print-outs in the libaries. Call the UCard office at 545-0197 for information. |
| Vendor | An intermediary who designs a database interface and owns its content. Vendors can also be the distributor who obtains books and other materials for libraries. Library staff work with the vendors of the products we purchase or subscribe to, in order to constantly improve service to our patrons. |
| Volume | A number of issues of a periodical, usually a year.5 |
| Notes |
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| 1, 2, & 5. | New York University. Bobst Library. Technical Services Department. (1996, December 16). "Glossary." Retrieved August 25, 2002, from http://www.nyu.edu/library/bobst/research/tsd/glossary.htm |
| 3. | From the University of Akron Library website. |
| 4. | From the UC Berkeley Serials Manual. |
| Special thanks to Linda Matson for beginning this glossary and for Liz Fitzpatrick for creating the printed version. | |