ABSTRACT -- A brief summary of a book or article; also a type of index that provides summaries of the sources listed. 

ACCESS POINT -- A name, term, code, number, etc., under which a source may be found in a catalog, index, or other finding tool. 

ANNOTATION -- A note or comment accompanying an entry in a bibliography which describes and/or evaluates the source referred to. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY -- A list of sources; a finding tool. 

BIOGRAPHY -- A source giving information about a person. 

BOOLEAN OPERATOR -- See OPERATOR 

CALL NUMBER -- A group of letters and numbers appearing in the library catalog record AND on the item on the shelf. The call number provides the item's exact location on the shelf. 

CATALOG -- A finding tool which lists what a library owns and where it is physically located. 

CITATION -- The orderly arrangement of elements which describes a unique source (i.e., book, journal, etc.). A citation may take the form of a footnote or work cited in a paper or an entry in a catalog, index or bibliography. 

CLASSIFICATION -- System used by libraries to organize collections of sources according to their subject matter. 

CONTROLLED VOCABULARY -- The authorized words used to provide subject access to a catalog or other finding tool. The library's catalog uses the Library of Congress Subject Holdings as its controlled vocabulary. 

CROSS REFERENCE -- A reference from one word, subject, or name to another. 

DATABASE -- An organized collection of discreet records of a standardized format and content. 

DATABASE SEARCH -- A search of a set of records for the purpose of extracting significant ones. 

DEWEY DECIMAL SYSTEM -- A numerical classification system commonly used to organize library collections. 

DISCIPLINE -- A branch of knowledge or learning. 

FACT TOOL -- A type of reference source consulted for discrete answers to specific questions. 

FIELD -- A discreet unit of information in a database record (ex. author, date, title). 

FINDING TOOL -- A type of reference source consulted for access to information contained in other sources. Catalogs, indexes and bibliographies are finding tools. 

FIXED FIELD -- A field in a database record made up of a fixed number of characters. 

HOLDINGS -- The collection of books, periodicals, etc., in a library. 

INDEX -- A listing providing access to the contents of sources, usually magazines and journals; also an alphabetical listing in the back of a book of the content of an item with page numbers. 

INFORMATION LITERACY -- The ability to search, locate, evaluate, and use information sources. 

INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH -- Research that crosses traditional subject boundaries requiring information from various subject areas to get a complete picture, such as, research on environmental issues. 

INTERLIBRARY LOAN (ILL) -- A service through which one library borrows materials from another library for one of its users. 

JOURNAL -- A periodical, especially one containing scholarly articles. 

KEY WORD -- A significant word, as from a book or article title, that is used to access an item. 

LC -- The Library of Congress; may also refer to Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) or the classification system developed for the Library of Congress. 

LIBRARY SKILLS -- The ability to find information in libraries and manipulate library tools effectively (searching the online catalogs, CD-ROMs, and the WWW, finding a book on the shelf and checking it out, etc.). 

MAGAZINE -- A periodical for general reading containing articles on various subjects by different authors. 

MONOGRAPH -- A scholarly book on a single subject. 

MULTIPLE ACCESS POINTS -- The names, subject terms, etc., that together make up the ways in which a source may be retrieved within a file, list or database. 

OCLC -- The Online Computer Library Center; a service used by member libraries for information appearing in catalog records, to communicate interlibrary loan requests between member libraries and search a collection of databases called First Search. 

OPERATOR -- A "connecting" word or symbol that combines terms in a keyword search. 

PATHFINDER -- A handout covering a specific topic describing library sources one may find within the confines of a given library. 

PERIODICAL -- A serial regularly appearing two or more times a year, numbered or dated consecutively. Newspapers and magazines are periodicals. 

POPULAR SOURCES -- Materials written for the general reader. 

PRIMARY SOURCES -- Fundamental documents; the direct, material evidence of an event, experiment, etc. 

REFERENCE LIBRARIAN -- Library staff member specializing in the provision of information and instruction in the use of library sources. 

SCHOLARLY SOURCES -- Sources written for the more advanced reader and researcher most often using a documentation system to acknowledge the use of other sources. 

SECONDARY SOURCES -- Material, not classified as primary, which summarizes, synthesizes, or evaluates the primary evidence or source. 

"SEE ALSO" REFERENCE -- A suggestion to also search under additional related terms in a reference fact or finding tool. 

"SEE" REFERENCE -- Indicates that a different term must be used to access sources on that subject. 

SERIAL -- A publication issued in successive parts and intended to continue indefinitely. Magazines, newspapers, journals, and annuals are examples of serials. 

SERIAL (or PERIODICALS) LIST -- An alphabetical listing of the serial publications to which the library subscribes. This listing usually includes the library's holdings for each title listed. 

SUBJECT HEADING -- A word or phrase through which all material dealing with the given subject may be found in a catalog, index, or bibliography; an access point. 

THESAURUS -- A subject heading list used in a catalog, index, bibliography or database. 

TRUNCATION -- To shorten a search word to retrieve all terms with a common root, or both the singular and plural forms of a word. 

UNION LIST -- A cooperatively developed catalog of the holdings of a group of libraries. The Linn County Library Consortium Union List of Periodicals is one such list. 

VARIABLE LENGTH FIELD -- A field in a data base record that can be of a varying number of characters. 

VENN DIAGRAMS -- Pictures that display simple relationships among sets; frequently used to show the results of a database search.