When the glossary describes an online service it will refer to it as either:
Connecting to a Web site:
Connecting to a Telnet site:
Macintosh:
Windows PC
Unix
a short summary of a journal article. Some databases include an abstract with the reference information about an article.
Web site: http://altavista.digital.com/
A Web search engine. Recommended.
when composing a search, a query such as apples and bananas means that you want a document that contains both the word apples and the word bananas.
Thus in querying a database you might find the following:
search number of hits
apples 157
bananas 292
diamonds 79
apples and bananas 34
apples and bananas and diamonds 0
Note that and-ing search terms together usually means that you will get fewer hits. This is different to the use of 'and' in normal English where it may carry connotations of more things. Other related commands are NOT and OR.
see link
a record of Web pages stored by a Web browser. Web browsers allow you to mark interesting pages by adding to a list known as a bookmark list. So when you want to return to a page you can select an item from a menu rather than typing in a URL. Bookmarks are held in a file - the location of the file is usually specified in the Options menu of the Web browser. If you are using a public lab then you should save your bookmarks on a floppy disk as you may be on a different PC when you next want to use them.
see Web browser.
A Compact Disc that stores digital information. CD's can store huge quantities of text, reasonable amounts of sound or still pictures and tiny amounts of moving images. CD-ROMs (Read Only Memory) are often used to store bibliographic databases.
A reference to a particular article
A search forwards through time for all subsequent articles that have referred to the chosen article.
Web site: http://www.copac.ac.uk/copac/
Telnet site: copac.ac.uk
give the username of copac and password of copac
A union catalogue of several university library catalogues.
Bath Information & Data Services
Telnet site: bids.ac.uk
Web site: http://www.bids.ac.uk/ (not all databases can be accessed via the Web)
BIDS is a UK-based provider of bibliographic data services. It contains reference information rather than full-text information. A username and password are required - these are available from the Library. Recommended.
a means of sending computer-readable information from one person to another.
Frequently Asked Questions. An Internet term for a collection of questions and answers often asked by newcomers to a subject - particularly a newsgroup.
Telnet site: fscat.oclc.org
An online bibliographic database. Password available from the library.
see FTP.
Some databases allow you to search through all the words in a record. Other databases restrict searches to certain parts such as the author or the title. Alta Vista supports free text searching of the Web.
see FAQ.
file transfer protocol. FTP allows a person to transfer files between two computers, generally connected via the Internet. FTP is incorporated into Web browsers such as Netscape Navigator.
a complete article or book. As opposed to a reference. Most full-text sources are on paper but increasingly you can find full-text on the World Wide Web.
A intermediate computer system that allows you structured access to several other databases. BIDS is a gateway system.
a fore-runner of the World Wide Web. Gopher systems appear as a list of text items. Gophers can be used by Web browsers and gopher:// can appear at the start of a URL.
Information stored in a hierarchical manner; in groups of increasingly abstract classes. To find out about emus (or whether they had anything about emus) in a hierarchical index one might go down the following index options in the hierarchy: Life sciences, Biology, Birds, Flightless Birds, Emus. Yahoo provides a hierarchical index of web pages.
A term for the matching of a search expression with an item in a database, e.g. "this search returned 5 hits"
Harvard OnLine Library Information System
Telnet site: hollis.harvard.edu
The online catalogue of Harvard University Library. One of the many library catalogues available, see NISS for many more.
see link
see inter-library loan.
The arrangement of things displayed by a computer. Interfaces usually consist of text, graphics, windows, menus, dialogue boxes etc.
A means of obtaining full-text materials not in the local Library. Each inter-library loan request costs the Library money and so this service should only used for essential materials.
a network of computers around the world. Incorporating the World Wide Web, online catalogues and many other computerised resources.
A word that can be used when searching for an article. Indexers may include a list of keywords along with an article. The aim is to characterise the significant elements of the article so that someone searching would use one or more of those keywords if their interests coincided. To support this, some databases list the keywords that have been used. In databases that permit free text searching, the term keyword is also used to refer to the words that a searcher guesses might be useful in yielding the data she wants.
Joint Academic Network. The network connecting UK Universities to each other and to the rest of the world. See SuperJANET.
A publication consisting of articles. Journals appear in volumes, each volume having several issues (or numbers).
a connection between two Web pages. When a link is selected on a Web page the Web browser retrieves the page at the other end of the link and displays it.
A popular computer program that runs a mailing list.
a text-only Web browser.
Web site: http://www.mailbase.ac.uk/
A UK centre for mailing lists.
Information distributed to its members via email.
Telnet site: melvyl.ucop.edu
The online library catalogue of the University of California. MELVYL is a union catalogue of the various universities of the University of California, e.g. UCLA, UCSD, UCI etc. One of the larger American library catalogues.
a Web browser.
see NCSA Mosaic.
a Web browser.
see NewsGroups.
Web site: http://home.netscape.com/
a Web browser. Also allows you to read email and Newsgroups.
A worldwide bulletin board of electronic messages. A bit like public archived email. News requires a specialist software program to read it, e.g. Netscape Navigator. News is divided into different interest areas, e.g. talk.politics, rec.arts.disney, sci.physics etc. For detailed information see the Web site:
National Information Systems and Services.
Web site: http://www.niss.ac.uk/
A UK site listing many online sources. Recommended.
When composing a search, a query term such as not bananas means that you don't want any documents that contain the word bananas. The NOT option is normally used as part of a larger more complex search. For example apples and not bananas means that you want documents that contains the word apples but not the word bananas. Other related commands are AND and OR.
Thus in a database you might find the following:
search number of hits
apples 157
bananas 292
apples and not bananas 123
Often brackets are used to make the logic clearer: apples and (not bananas)
A computer database that gives you information on the books and journals in a library. Lancaster University Library catalogue is at:
Telnet site: felix.lancs.ac.uk
NISS lists many library catalogues at:
Online Public Access Catalogue. See online catalogue
when composing a search, a query such as apples or bananas means that you want a document that contains either the word apples or the word bananas (or both).
Thus in a database you might find the following:
search number of hits
apples 157
bananas 292
diamonds 79
apples or bananas 415 (this isn't 157+292 because some articles contain both)
apples or bananas or diamonds 494
Note also that or-ing search terms together usually means that you will get more hits. This is different to the use of 'or' in normal English where it may carry connotations of fewer things. Other related commands are AND and NOT.
A publication which has issues on a regular (periodic) basis. A generic term that covers newspapers, magazines, journals etc.
see stem.
A computer program that allows you to search a database. Often used of the search facilities for the Web. Alta Vista is a search engine for the Web.
a query made to a database. It may be a particular thing such as an authors name or a book title. Very often a search expression consists of a number of keywords combined with and, or, and not.
A librarian's term for a journal or a periodical
The first part of a word or series of words. Words with the same stem are usually related, e.g. communicate, communicates, communication, communication, communicative all share the same stem of communicat. A word stem is usually used together with a wildcard character to perform a truncation search. This is a searching trick to ensure you get all the articles that use the concept that the stem relates to even if they use a different word.
common words removed from search expressions, e.g. the, be, to, and. There may a method of searching for these words but it varies from system to system.
a faster version of JANET able to carry more information.
A program that enables you to connect to online computer systems.
The removal of letters from the end of a word, or series of words. Often a word is truncated to a common stem and a wildcard character is added.
a combined catalogue of several smaller catalogues. For example, COPAC is a union catalogue of several university library catalogues, as is MELVYL.
Uniform Resource Locator. A way of identifying a Web page or other resource on the World Wide Web. All of these are valid URLs:
file://wuarchive.wustl.edu/mirrors/msdos/graphics/gifkit.zip
ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/mirrors
another term for Newsgroups.
see World Wide Web.
see World Wide Web.
A name given to a software program to access the World Wide Web. Also called a Web client or client browser. Examples are Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Explorer, NCSA Mosaic and Lynx.
a page of information on the World Wide Web.
a collection of pages on the World Wide Web. Used synonymously with Web server.
a computer that responds to requests from Web browsers by returning Web pages.
see World Wide Web.
A global network of computers accessed by Web browsers. Part of the Internet.
Web site: http://www.w3.org/
A organisation of people developing the World Wide Web.
A character which stands for any other letter or letters in a search expression. A wildcard allows a search by keyword to match many related words. Wildcard characters vary between systems but most commonly the * stands for any number of letters and the ? stands for one letter. For example,
swim* will match swim, swims, swimmer, swimmers, swimming, swimmingly etc
sw?m will match swim and swam but not swims
Yet Another Hierarchical Online Index.
Web site: http://www.yahoo.com/
A hierarchical index. One of the largest of its type.