Glossary
Choose a letter
below to go directly to the corresponding section
in the glossary:
A
abstract: the summary of the contents
of an article, etc. Also, a periodical index containing
such summaries.
article database:
searchable database for finding citations to journal
articles, conference papers and other types of publications.
B
bibliography: a listing of articles, books,
dissertations, etc. on a given subject.
C
call number: a combination of letters
and numbers used by a library to classify and arrange
books, periodicals, microforms, and other materials.
Call numbers are placed on the spine of a book and
indicate the location of that item in the library.
Most research and academic libraries use Library
of Congress call numbers, which indicate the subject
of the book and allow
books with the same subject to be shelved together.
Library of Congress call numbers use a combination
of letters and numbers, for example, GT 605 .R45
1999.
catalog: in this case, the library
catalog which is searchable and contains information
about all of the materials (books, journals, CD-ROMs,
etc.) that the BU Libraries own.
citation: a journal article citation
includes author, title of article, title of journal,
volume, issue (if any), date and page numbers. A
book citation includes author, title, place of publication,
publisher, and year of publication.
E
electronic journal (also known as e-journal):
a web publication containing the same content as
the hard copy journal, that is available online.
F
full text: complete textual contents of
a material; normally referring to an electronic
journal that publishes all articles in their entirety
online.
I
index: Technically, a "periodical
index." A listing by subject of periodical articles
and possibly books and dissertations. May contain
abstracts. Do not confuse this with the simpler
variety of index, an alphabetical subject listing
at the end of a reference book.
InterLibrary Loan (ILL):
A service of the library which borrows materials
it does not own from another library. Library users
may borrow books and dissertations, and may obtain
photocopies of journal articles through ILL.
J
journal: see periodicals.
L
library of congress classification: organization
system for assigning call numbers of library materials
that uses a combination of letters and numbers to
arrange materials by subject. For more information
about the arrangement of subjects in this classification
system, visit Library
of Congress Classification Online.
Note that this system arranges subjects from
general to specific. Class Q is the Science Class
and QH is the subclass within Q for Biology and
Natural History. If you were browsing the library
stacks for books about Ecology, you should be
looking specifically at call numbers within the
range of QH540-549.5. See Library
of Congress Classification Online for the Class
Q to see how all sciences are arranged. This
concept can be somewhat confusing in the Science
and Engineering Library (SEL) because current
journals are arranged on the first floor alphabetically
by title, so these journals are easily browseable
by title. But, if you wanted to browse older,
bound journals (located in the lower level of
SEL), you should go to the subclass for the specific
topic you are looking for. It would take a long
time to browse all of the materials located in
the Class Q if you were only looking for Ecology
information. You would have browsed all of Q-QH539
before finding anything on Ecology!
M
monograph: a library term for book.
P
peer-review: a system used by research
journals to evaluate the quality of submitted papers
prior to publication. The papers are reviewed by
other scientists (peers) working in the same research
area.
periodicals: a collective name
for journals and magazines. Periodicals do not circulate.
bound periodical: a bound volume,
in hard covers, often a year's issues of a journal
or magazine. Bound periodicals are kept in call
number order in the stacks.
Journal: a monthly or quarterly
review, or the like, similar to a magazine, only
more scholarly in nature.
magazine: a continuing publication
containing articles on a variety of topical subjects.
Less scholarly than a journal.
primary literature: detailed
record of research formally published as an article
in a journal or a paper in the published proceedings
of a conference. Some of these are brief reports
of research in progress (sometimes called "communications"
or letters"), which whole journals or a section
of a journal devoted to this format. Unlink these
brief reports and papers delivered at conferences,
the longer research articles in scholarly journals
are peer-reviewed prior to publication lending them
the most authority.
R
review: a digest of recent research in
a particular subject area.
S
secondary literature: publications
summarizing and pointing to the primary literature
soon after it appears. Their main purpose it to
facilitate timely access to scientific information.
Most significant in this category are indexing and
abstracting services in which you can search across
journals to find articles of interest. Also in this
category are review articles published in journals
or appearing in annual volumes devoted exclusively
to reviews.
serials: a library term for periodicals.
stacks: the areas of the library
where the books are shelved. Here at Boston University,
the stacks are open to students.
T
thesaurus: a book listing subject
headings for a specific periodical index or database.
Do not confuse this with the other kind of thesaurus,
a book listing synonyms. |
