History
Tutorial

Sections

Glossary

Abstract: brief summary; also used to refer to a type of periodical index that includes abstracts of articles

Bibliography: list of references or works cited, usually given at the end of a scholarly article or other research material

Boolean Operators: the words AND, OR, and NOT, which are used to combine search terms to either narrow or broaden a search set; from the 19th century mathematician George Boole.

Browser: software used to access Internet resources; Netscape is an example of a Web browser

Call Number: an alphanumeric number assigned to library materials; call #s group materials on the shelf by subject; our call #s are assigned from the Library of Congress Classification Scheme

Citation: information necessary to find a specific article, book, etc; usually includes author, title, journal title with volume, issue & page # for articles or publisher, place of publication & year for books

Database: an electronic collection of information, usually in the form of individual records broken down into specific fields; Historical Abstracts is a database of materials about world history; ODU Library's online catalog is a database of all the materials owned by the library

Field: the smallest part of a record in a database; examples of fields are author, title, year

Full-Text: the full content of an article; the article itself

Government Documents: Official documents produced by federal, state or local governmental agencies; often used as primary sources

Holdings: Materials owned by a library, including books, journals, videos, etc

Home Page: the initial page of a World-Wide-Web site; ODU Library's home page is at http://www.lib.odu.edu which leads to hundreds of pages on the library's Web server

Hot Link: see Link

Imprint: the publisher, place of publication, and copyright date of a book

Index: print or electronic list of citations, usually arranged by subject and/or author, used to identify relevant research materials

Interlibrary Loan: a service that allows you to borrow materials from another library

Internet: a widespread, worldwide network of educational, commercial, organizational and other networks

Keyword: any word in a database (as opposed to subject headings that are selected from a controlled vocabulary, or thesaurus, and assigned to each record); keyword searching involves using your own words

Link: hypertext connection on the Internet, where you click on a highlighted word or words and move to another place either in the current page or anywhere on the Internet

Microfilm/microfiche: photographic reproduction of original documents in reduced size; the library's microfilm/fiche collection is on the 2nd floor

Netscape: a company that produces a popular Web browser.

Online (library) Catalog: an electronic listing of all materials owned by a library, searchable by author, title, keyword, subject, or call number

Peer Review: the process in which research articles are reviewed and critiqued by experts in that field before publication.

Periodical Database or Index: see index

Periodical: material that is published or issued on a continual basis throughout the year, including journals, magazines, newspapers

Primary Source: original documentary evidence from a given historical period. Common primary sources are letters, diaries, government documents, etc.

Record: the element of a database that gives all information (in the form of fields) about a specific item in the database

Refereed Journal: journal that uses the peer review process for publication of articles

References: list of citations to materials cited in the body of the text and/or consulted during research

Reload: the button on your browser that reloads the current page to be sure it is the most up-to-date revision of that page

Search Engine: Web site that allows you to search for other Websites by keywords

Secondary Source: books, articles or other analysis produced after an event takes place

Subject Heading: standardized terms, taken from a controlled vocabulary (thesaurus) and assigned to individual materials

Thesaurus: controlled vocabulary; list of standardized subject terms associated with a particular database or index

Truncation: a search technique that allows a symbol to substitute for any number of characters at the end of a word root (e.g., comput* = computer, computers, computerization, etc)