Glossary

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Abstract
A brief summary of a journal article.

Acrobat Reader
A computer program used to view PDF files. Also known as Adobe Acrobat.

Author
The principal person(s) or organisation(s) accredited with the writing of a book or article.

Adobe Acrobat
A computer program used to view PDF files. Also known as Acrobat Reader.

Bibliography
A list of resources used in the writing of a paper or assignment, and usually presented at the end of the work.

Boolean operators
Terms "and", "or" and "not" used in a search to broaden or narrow the results. Also known as logical operators.

Broaden
To increase the number of results in a search. The Boolean operator "or" will broaden your search to find more references.

Browser print
Displays and prints the article in full-page format using your web browser.

Call number
Numbers and letters located on the spine, back or front of an item indicating its location in the Library's collection. All numbers are in numerical order from 000.001 through to 999.999, for example
582.160994 
C842.
Also known as a Dewey number.

Catalogue
A list of all items belonging to the Library.

Catalogue record
The information that identifies a single item in the Catalogue. Information includes title, author, availability and bibliographic details.

Circ desk
Short for "circulation desk". The place where you take items you wish to borrow for processing by Library staff.

Citation
The bibliographic details of an item or article. Usually includes author, title, date of publication, journal title, volume and page numbers. May include an abstract or brief description of the item.

Database
Data stored in a computer and organised in categories to assist in retrieval.

Dewey decimal classification
A system for classifying information into subject areas. It is based on a decimal numbering system which groups related subjects together. It was established by Melvil Dewey.

Dewey number
Numbers and letters located on the spine, back or front of an item indicating its location in the collection. All numbers are in numerical order from 000.001 through to 999.999, for example
582.160994 
C842.
Also known as a call number.

Full text
The complete document.

Holdings
A list of the number of copies held by the Library. Includes call numbers, volume, material and status codes.

Hyperlink
A word or image within an electronic document or web site which, when clicked, opens or takes you to another location within that document or to a different web site. Also known as a link.

Journal
An item that the Library subscribes to which is published on a regular basis (weekly, monthly or yearly). These are also called periodicals, serials or magazines. Journals contain articles and are usually subject-specific.

Key word
A word that is central to the subject matter of an item.

Link
A word or image within an electronic document or web site which, when clicked, opens or takes you to another location within that document or to a different web site. Also known as a hyperlink.

Location
The physical place where an item is kept, for example Portland, Warrnambool or Hamilton campus library.

Logical operators
Terms "and", "or" and "not", used in a search to broaden or narrow the results. Also known as Boolean operators.

Narrow
To decrease the number of results in a search. The boolean operator "and" will narrow your search to find more references.

Material
Type of item, for example, video, book or poster.

PDF
Portable Document Format. A PDF file shows an image of the original document and can only be viewed by the Adobe Acrobat computer program.

Periodical
An item that the Library subscribes to which is published on a regular basis (weekly, monthly or yearly). These are also called journals, serials or magazines. Journals contain articles and are usually subject-specific.

Phrase
A meaningful group of words, such as a short saying.

PIN
Security identity number used to gain access to your personal library catalogue record. (Abbreviation of Personal Identification Number.)

Reading list
A list of books, chapters or articles provided by your teacher which you are required to read or use as part of your course.

REF
Short for "Reference". Reference items include dictionaries, year books and encyclopædias, and are not available for loan.

Refereed publications
Refereed publications have articles and papers reviewed by experts before they are published. This is to ensure that the data and methodology meets a standard.

Reference collection
Not-for-loan collection comprising dictionaries, year books and encyclopædias. See also REF.

Relevance search
A type of search that allows you to search two words that have a relationship to each other. A relevance search must be written with double quotes, for example "civil war". 

In a relevance search the words in quotation marks can appear in any order, but must appear next to each other, for example "civil war" or "war civil".

Serial
An item that the Library subscribes to which is published on a regular basis (weekly, monthly or yearly). These are also called periodicals, journals or magazines. Serials contain articles and are usually subject-specific.

Spine label
The label (usually white) which the call number is printed on. Found either on the spine, front or back of an item.

Status
The status of an item indicates if it is available to be borrowed, for example "Available", "OnHold" or "OnLoan".

Stop words
Stop words are small words that are not indexed in a database, for example "a", "and", "etc", "in", "of", "on" or "the". 
Do not put these words in your search as the database will not look for them, even if they are part of a title.

Subject heading
A word or phrase that describes the theme of an article or book. Most items will have more than one subject heading attached to it.

Title
The distinguishing name of a book, video, poem or picture.

URL
An address for any resource on the Internet, for example http://www.swtafe.edu.au. (Abbreviation of Uniform Resource Locator.)

Volume
Indicates the number of parts in a single title, for example the Encyclopædia Britannica has 27 volumes.

Wildcards
Symbols such as "*", "?", "!" used to assist in searching a database.