Important LIS term (J-Z)

Jest book
A collection of jokes, witty anecdotes, epigrams, exempla, and ribald tales, usually with didactic endings.

Joint author
A person who collaborates with one or more authors to produce a work in which all who contribute perform the same function.

Joint publication
Publication of the same work by two different publishers in separate editions, often in hardcover by a university press and in paperback by a trade publisher.

Journal
A periodical devoted to disseminating original research and commentary on current developments in a specific discipline, subdiscipline, or field of study, usually published in quarterly, bimonthly, or monthly issues sold by subscription.

Juvenile collection
A library collection of books and other materials intended specifically for children under 12-13 years of age, shelved separately from the adult and young adult collections, sometimes in a children's room with separate sections for juvenile fiction and nonfiction, beginning readers and easy books, picture books, and books for very young children .

Keyword
A significant word or phrase in the title, subject headings, contents note, abstract, or text of a record in an online catalog or bibliographic database that can be used as a search term in a free-text search to retrieve all the records containing it.

Keyword index
A type of subject index in which significant words, usually from the titles of the works indexed, are used as headings.

Lab manual
A book of exercises that includes instructions for laboratory experiments to be carried out, usually under the supervision of an instructor, by a student enrolled in a course in the sciences, often published in soft-cover in conjunction with a textbook.

Lending library
A library or other institution that sends materials on request to another library, usually via interlibrary loan.

Lexicography
The process of writing and compiling a dictionary or glossary, including the selection of terms and the preparation of an entry for each word, giving the correct spelling, pronunciation, derivation, one or more definitions, and sometimes antonyms and examples of usage. The person who writes or compiles such a work is a lexicographer.

Librarian
A professionally trained person responsible for the care of a library and its contents, including the selection, processing, and organization of materials and the delivery of information, instruction, and loan services to meet the needs of its users.

Librarianship
The profession devoted to applying theory and technology to the creation, selection, organization, management, preservation, dissemination, and utilization of collections of information in all formats.

Library
A collection or group of collections of books and/or other print or nonprinting materials organized and maintained for use (reading, consultation, study, research, etc).

Library administration
The control and supervision of a library or library system, including planning, budgeting, policymaking, personnel management, public relations, and program assessment, with responsibility for results.

Library advisory committee
A standing committee at an academic institution, composed of members of the teaching faculty, library professionals, and students who have an interest in library services, charged with advising the library administration on policies and decisions affecting teaching and learning, such as library hours and the allocation of funds to academic departments for new acquisitions, and with acting as library advocates in institution-wide decision-making.

Library automation
The design and implementation of ever more sophisticated computer systems to accomplish functions of acquisitions, cataloging and authority control, serials control, circulation and inventory, and interlibrary loan and document delivery originally done by hand in libraries.

Library award
Special recognition given to an individual, group, or library in honor of outstanding achievement and/or distinguished service to the profession.

Library card
A small paper or plastic card issued by a library in the name of a registered borrower, to be presented at the circulation desk when checking out materials from its collections.

Library collection
The total accumulation of books and other materials owned by a library, cataloged and arranged for ease of access, often consisting of several smaller collections (reference, circulating books, serials, government documents, rare books, special collections, etc.).

Library cooperation
Methods by which libraries and library systems work together for the mutual benefit of their users, including centralized processing, cooperative cataloging, international exchange of bibliographic information, union catalogs, resource sharing, etc.

Library newsletter
A publication of no more than a few pages issued by a library to its clientele on a regular or irregular basis to inform them of the availability of services and resources, describe new and ongoing initiatives, and announce upcoming events, exhibitions, etc.

Library of Congress Classification (LCC)
A system of classifying books and other library materials developed and maintained over the last 200 years by the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. In LCC, human knowledge is divided into 20 broad categories indicated by single letters of the Roman alphabet, with major subdivisions indicated by a second letter, and narrower subdivisions by decimal numbers and further alphabetic notation.

Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)
The complete alphabetic list of controlled vocabulary created by catalogers and used in cataloging since 1898 at the Library of Congress in assigning subject headings to facilitate access to the information content of newly published works.

Library science
The professional knowledge and skill with which recorded information is selected, acquired, organized, stored, maintained, retrieved, and disseminated to meet the needs of a specific clientele, usually taught at a professional library school qualified to grant the post baccalaureate degree

Library staff
The entire group of paid employees responsible for the operation and management of a library or library system, including its director, librarians, paraprofessionals, technical assistants, clerical personnel, and pages or student assistants.

Local area network (LAN)
A communications network restricted to a relatively small geographic area, often within a single building or group of adjacent buildings consisting of at least one high-speed server, client workstations, a network operating system, and a communications link.

Local bibliography
A bibliography of books and other materials about a specific geographic area smaller than a country, usually covering material about the history, geography, architecture, and environment of the area, as well as works about the people born or residing in it.

Lotka's Law
The bibliometric principle that the number of authors making n contributions to the scholarly literature of a given field is about C/na, with C (the number making a single contribution) a constant.

Magazine
A popular interest periodical usually containing articles on a variety of topics, written by various authors in a nonscholarly style.

Magnetic disk
A rewritable computer storage medium consisting of a revolving platter on which digital data is encoded as tiny magnetic spots arranged in tracks.

Magnetic tape
An electronic storage medium consisting of a thin strip of flexible plastic to which a metallic coating is applied that can be selectively magnetized to record information sequentially in linear or helical tracks.

Main entry
The entry in a library catalog that provides the fullest description of a bibliographic item, by which the work is to be uniformly identified and cited.

Main schedule
The list of classes used by a cataloger or indexer, individually or in combination, to classify documents by subject under the rules of a given classification system, arranged in the order of their symbolic notation.

Manuscript
A work of any kind (text, inscription, music score, map, etc.) written entirely by hand. Also refers to the handwritten or typescript copy of an author's work as submitted for publication, before printing.

Manuscript book
A book written entirely by hand, particularly one produced prior to the invention of printing from movable type, usually copied by medieval monks or scribes on leaves of parchment or vellum, bound in leather-covered wooden boards.

Metadata
Metadata is data about data that describe the format, attribute and function of data in recorded information describing information resources/objects for a variety of purposes.

Metropolitan area network (MAN)
A computer network connecting users over a geographic area larger than a local area network (LAN) but smaller than a wide area network (WAN), ranging in size from several blocks of buildings to an entire city.

Microfiche
A small card-shaped sheet of photographic film designed for storing miniaturized text and/or microimages arranged sequentially in a two-dimensional grid.

Microfilm
A 16mm or 35mm photographic film to store miniaturized text and/or microimages in a linear array consisting of a single row or double row of frames that can be magnified and reproduced only with the aid of specially designed equipment.

Microform
A generic term for a highly reduced photographic copy of text and/or images stored on a translucent medium or on an opaque medium such as card stock.

Mnemonic notation
A classification notation in which the characters representing the classes are directly linked to the name of the class, making it easier for the user to learn and recall the way the classification system is organized.

Monograph
A relatively short book or treatise on a single subject, complete in one physical piece, usually written by a specialist in the field. Monographic treatment is detailed and scholarly but not extensive in scope.

Multimedia
In a more general sense, any program, presentation, or computer application in which two or more communication media are used simultaneously or in close association, for example, slides with recorded sound.

Music library
A library containing a collection of materials on music and musicians, including printed and manuscript music scores, music periodicals, recorded music, books about music and musicians, program notes, discographies, and music reference materials.

National bibliography
A list of books and other materials published or distributed in a specific country, especially works written about the country and its inhabitants or in its national language.

National library
A library designated and funded by a national government to serve the nation by maintaining a comprehensive collection of the published and unpublished literary output of the nation as a whole, including publications of the government itself.

Network
A group of physically discrete computers interconnected to allow resources to be shared and data exchanged, usually by means of telecommunication links and client/server architecture.

News library
A type of special library maintained in the offices of a newspaper publisher, or other news agency, that includes in its collection newspaper and magazine clippings, photo files, maps, pamphlet files, microforms, reference materials, and online databases related to news and current events.

Newspaper index
A list of the editorial content (news stories, articles, editorials, and columns) published in one or more newspapers, usually arranged alphabetically by subject.

Notation
The set of characters (numerals, letters of the alphabet, and/or symbols) used to represent the main classes and subdivisions of a classification system. In library cataloging, the class notation assigned to a bibliographic item represents its subject and is the first element of the call number, determining its position on the shelf relative to items on other subjects.

Omnibus book
A large single-volume reprint of two or more separately published novels or other literary works, usually by the same author.

On-demand publishing
Production by a commercial service of single copies or small quantities of rare, out of print, or difficult to find publications in response to orders from individual customers, as opposed to supply from inventory.

Online
A computer connected to the Internet, an intranet, or some other network via telecommunication links, as opposed to a stand-alone system

Online catalog
A library catalog consisting of a collection of bibliographic records in machine-readable format, maintained on a dedicated computer that provides uninterrupted interactive access via terminals or workstations in direct, continuous communication with the central computer.

Online Computer Library Center (OCLC)
The largest bibliographic utility in the world, providing cataloging and acquisitions services, serials and circulation control, interlibrary loan support, and access to online databases. OCLC began as the Ohio College Library Center in 1967, changed its name in 1981 to reflect wider membership, and has since become a major source of cooperative cataloging data for libraries around the world.

OPAC
An acronym for online public access catalog, a database composed of bibliographic records describing the books and other materials owned by a library or library system, accessible via public terminals or workstations usually concentrated near the reference desk to make it easy for users to request the assistance of a trained reference librarian.

Open entry
A bibliographic record, holdings statement, or entry in an index or bibliography that allows further information concerning the item to be added, used in the library catalog to describe a serial publication for which the library does not own all the issues or parts.

Optical fiber
A thin, flexible cable containing a bundle of very fine, highly transparent, tubular glass fibers made of pure silicon dioxide, designed to transmit information encoded in pulses of laser light at very high speed by means of internal reflection.

Out of print (OP)
A publication no longer obtainable through regular market channels because the publisher's inventory is exhausted, with no prospect of another printing in the foreseeable future. A book goes out of print when the publisher decides sales no longer justify the expense of maintaining inventory, when it is superseded by a later edition, or when the rights are relinquished by the publisher.

Overdue
A circulating item checked out from a library and kept by the borrower past its due date.

Pagination
The practice of marking the pages of a written or printed document with consecutive numbers to indicate their sequence.

Pamphlet
A nonerial publication consisting of at least 5 but no more than 48 pages exclusive of covers, stapled or sewn but not bound, usually enclosed in covers of the same paper as the text.

Patent
A legal document issued by the government, in response to a formal application process in which the inventor or originator of a new product or process is granted the exclusive right to manufacture, use, and sells it for a designated period of time.

Periodical
A serial publication with its own distinctive title, containing a mix of articles, editorials, reviews, columns, short stories, poems, or other short works written by more than one contributor, issued in soft cover more than once, generally at regular stated intervals of less than a year, without prior decision as to when the final issue will appear.

Periodical index
A cumulative list of periodical articles in which the citations are entered by subject (or in classified arrangement) and sometimes under the author's last name, separately or in a single alphabetic sequence.

Preservation
Prolonging the existence of library and archival materials by maintaining them in a condition suitable for use, either in their original format or in a form more durable, through retention under proper environmental conditions or actions taken after a book or collection has been damaged to prevent further deterioration.

Private library
A library of any size that is owned by an individual or family for personal enjoyment or by a private club, corporation, or foundation.

Proceedings
The published record of a conference, congress, symposium, or other meeting sponsored by a society or association, usually but not necessarily including abstracts or reports of papers presented by the participants.

Questionnaire
A list of written questions carefully formulated to be administered to a selected group of people for the purpose of gathering information in survey research.

Rare book
A book so difficult to find that only a few copies are known to antiquarian booksellers. Those that do exist seldom appear on the market and are consequently coveted.

Ready reference
A reference question that can be answered by a reference librarian in one or two minutes by providing a fact or piece of information found in a single source.

Recall
A request by a library to one of its borrowers to return a borrowed item before its due date.
In information retrieval, a measure of the effectiveness of a search, expressed as the ratio of the number of relevant records or documents retrieved in response to the query to the total number of relevant records or documents in the database.

Record
An account of something, put down in writing, usually as a means of documenting facts for legal or historical purposes.
In archives, a document created or received, and subsequently maintained, by an institution, organization, or individual in the transaction of official or personal business or in fulfillment of a legal obligation.

Records management
The field of management devoted to achieving accuracy, efficiency, and economy in the systematic creation, retention, conservation, dissemination, use, and disposition of the official records of a company, government agency, organization, or institution, whether in physical or electronic form, usually undertaken by a professionally trained records manager on the basis of a comprehensive and thorough records survey.

Reference book
A book designed to be consulted when authoritative information is needed, rather than read cover to cover. Reference books often consist of a series of signed or unsigned "entries" listed alphabetically under headwords or headings, or in some other arrangement (classified, numeric, etc.).

Reference collection
Books containing authoritative information not meant to be read cover to cover, such as dictionaries, handbooks, and encyclopedias, shelved together by call number in a special section of the library called the reference stacks.

Reference librarian
A librarian who works in public services, answering questions posed by library patrons at a reference desk, by telephone, or via e-mail. A reference librarian may also be called upon to provide point-of-use instruction on the use of library resources and information technology.

Reference services
All the functions performed by a trained librarian employed in the reference section of a library to meet the information needs of patrons (in person, by telephone, or electronically), including but not limited to answering substantive questions, instructing users in the selection and use of appropriate tools and techniques for finding information, conducting searches on behalf of the patron, directing users to the location of library resources, assisting in the evaluation of information, and so on.

Referral
A type of reference transaction in which a patron with an information need is directed to a reputable person or agency outside the library, better qualified to provide assistance.

Relative index
A subject index to a classification system indicating the classes under which subjects are listed, with their notations

Reprint
A new impression of an existing edition, often made by photographic means, or a new edition made from a new setting of type that is a copy of a previous impression, with no alterations in the text except perhaps the correction of typographical errors.

Reprint book
A collection consisting of articles previously published in one or more magazines or journals. The articles are used in their original format as camera-ready copy, rather than reset by the printer in uniform typographic style.

Reprography
A general term encompassing quick-service document reproduction or copying by any means except large-scale professional printing, including photography, microphotography, xerography, and photo duplication.

Requisition
A written request, usually submitted to the acquisitions department of a library on a standardized form, for the order of materials, equipment, supplies, or services.

Research library
A library containing a comprehensive collection of materials in a specific field, academic discipline, or group of disciplines, including primary and secondary sources, selected to meet the information needs of serious researchers.

Resource sharing
The activities that result from an agreement, formal or informal, among a group of libraries to share collections, data, facilities, personnel, etc., for the benefit of their users and to reduce the expense of collection development.

Retrospective bibliography
A bibliography restricted to materials published in the past, usually limited to a specific period of time.

Search engine
Originally, a hardware device designed to search a text-based database for specific character strings (queries) typed as input by the user. More recently, computer software designed to help the user locate information available at sites on the World Wide Web by selecting categories from a hierarchical directory of subjects or by entering appropriate keywords or phrases.

Search strategy
In information retrieval, a systematic plan for conducting a search.

Selective bibliography
A bibliography that includes only a portion of the relevant literature, usually based on predetermined selection criteria, such as the needs of a particular group of users, desire for current versus retrospective material, or an evaluation of quality.

Self-service
Library functions that can be initiated, controlled, and/or executed by the patron without the assistance of library staff.

Sister library
A library that enters into a voluntary partnership with a library from another culture for the purpose of encouraging multicultural exchange and international understanding.

Software
A generic term for computer programs and their associated documentation, as opposed to data used as input and generated as output. A software product consists of a set of instructions written by a programmer, distinct from the manufactured hardware used to run it.

Solo librarian
A librarian solely responsible for managing a small library, without the assistance of other paid staff.

Special library
A library established and funded by a commercial firm, private association, government agency, nonprofit organization, or special interest group to meet the information needs of its employees, members, or staff in accordance with the organization's mission and goals.

Subject analysis
Examination of a bibliographic item by a trained subject specialist to determine the most specific subject heading(s) or descriptor(s) that fully describe its content, to serve in the bibliographic record as access points in a subject search of a library catalog, index, abstracting service, or bibliographic database.

Subject bibliography
A list of books, articles, reports on a specific topic, usually compiled by a librarian or researcher with specialized knowledge of the subject to acquaint other researchers with the existing literature. A retrospective subject bibliography may be selective or comprehensive within a designated period of publication.

Subject index
An alphabetically arranged list of headings selected by an indexer to represent the subject content of one or more works, with locators to direct the user to the corresponding text.

Subtitle
A secondary portion of the title proper of a work, consisting of an explanatory or limiting phrase following a colon or semicolon, often beginning with "a" or "an."

Support staff
Library staff members not trained as librarians who have acquired a technical understanding of library practices and procedures and contribute on a daily basis to the smooth operation of a library but are not qualified to make policy decisions or participate in other activities of a professional nature.

Systems librarian
A librarian whose primary responsibility is the development and maintenance of the hardware and software systems used in a library or library system, especially the online catalog and access to any bibliographic databases and other electronic resources.

TCP/IP
An initialize for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, a set of communications protocols developed by the U.S. Department of Defense and implemented in 1982 to allow the users of host computers of different types and sizes to communicate with each other and exchange data via the Internet and other networks.

Technical journal
A journal devoted to a particular branch of engineering or technology, providing information for technicians in the field.

Technical library
A library that supports one or more of the applied sciences, such as engineering or computer science. A technical library can be a branch library in a large university, a major collection within a large academic or public library, or a special library maintained by a private corporation or government agency.

Telecommunication
The process of sending and receiving signals or messages at a distance via telegraph, telephone, radio, television, cable, microwave, or any other electromagnetic means, on which modern information technology depends. Also, any transmission, emission, or reception of signals by such methods.

Teletext
A type of one-way broadcasting service that allows digital information provided by a television station, such as closed captions or continuously updated news, to be displayed on a television receiver specially adapted to allow text and graphics to be superimposed over regular programming, usually in frames.

Textbook
An edition of a book specifically intended for the use of students who are enrolled in a course of study or preparing for an examination on a subject or in an academic discipline, as distinct from the trade edition of the same title. Also refers to the standard work used for a specific course of study, whether published in special edition or not.

Thesaurus
A book of synonyms and near-synonyms in a written language, usually arranged conceptually. Also refers to an alphabetically arranged lexicon of terms comprising the specialized vocabulary of an academic discipline or field of study, showing the logical and semantic relations among terms, particularly a list of subject headings or descriptors used as preferred terms in indexing the literature of the field.

Thesis
A proposition advanced and defended in a formal disputation, especially by a candidate in partial fulfillment of university requirements for a master's degree.

Title
A word, phrase, sentence, single character, or sequence of characters usually appearing on or in an item, naming the work(s) contained in it, for purposes of identification and reference.

Title index
An alphabetically arranged list of the titles of the works covered in a serial or nonserial publication.

Title page
The page at the beginning of a manuscript, book, or other printed publication, often of special design, bearing the title proper of the work and usually, but not necessarily, the name of the author(s), editor(s), translator(s), and publisher or printer and in some cases the volume number (if applicable) and date and place of publication.

Trade catalog
A list of all the books currently in print, published in a specific country or in other countries for which domestic publishers act as agents. Also, any publication that lists and describes the products manufactured and sold by a commercial company, with prices, illustrations, and information on how to order, for use in sales.

Union catalog
A list of the holdings of all the libraries in a library system, or of all or a portion of the collections of a group of independent libraries, indicating by name and/or location symbol which libraries own at least one copy of each item.

Universal Decimal Classification (UDC)
An elaborate expansion of Dewey Decimal Classification in which symbols are used in addition to Arabic numerals to create longer notations, making it more flexible and precise than DDC and particularly suitable for the classification of specialized collections.

User education
All the activities involved in teaching users how to make the best possible use of library resources, services, and facilities, including formal and informal instruction delivered by a librarian or other staff member one-on-one or in a group.

USMARC
A set of standards for the representation and communication of bibliographic data and related information in machine-readable format, originally developed and maintained for use in the United States and superseded in 1999 by MARC 21 with the harmonization of U.S. and Canadian MARC formats. USMARC governed three aspects of bibliographic description: (1) record structure, (2) content designation, and (3) the actual data content of the record.

Virtual library
A "library without walls" in which the collections do not exist on paper, microform, or other tangible form at a physical location but are electronically accessible in digital format via computer networks.

WebDewey
An enhanced version of the full Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) database available to full members and partial users of OCLC in conjunction with the CORC online cataloging project, WebDewey can be used to generate proposed Dewey class numbers for Web pages and other electronic resources.

Webliography
An enumerative list of digital resources on a specific topic or subject, available in print or on the Web. Typically, the URLs of any Web sites included in the resource list are embedded in the HTML document, enabling the user to connect to the site by clicking on its hypertext link.

Web page
An electronic document written in HTML script, stored on a Web server and accessible using Web browser software at a unique Internet address (URL), usually one of a group of related, interlinked files that together comprise a Web site. A Web page may include formatted text, graphic material, audio and/or video elements, and links to other files on the Internet.

Who's Who
A reference book or reference serial providing brief biographical information about well-known people who are still living. Who Was Who covers the lives of deceased persons of prominence.

WorldCat
WorldCat is the online union catalog of materials cataloged by OCLC member libraries and institutions, a rapidly growing bibliographic database containing over 50 million records representing materials published since 1000 B.C. in over 400 languages in a variety of formats (books, manuscripts, maps, music scores, newspapers, magazines, journals, theses and dissertations, sound recordings, films, video recordings, computer programs, machine-readable data files, etc.).

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
A specialized agency of the United Nations with headquarters in Geneva, WIPO is responsible for administering 21 international treaties concerning the protection of intellectual property under copyright, patent, and trademark law for the benefit of its 177 member nations.

World Wide Web (WWW)
A global network of Internet servers providing access to documents written in a script called Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) that allows content to be interlinked, locally and remotely.

World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
A nonprofit organization whose mission is to lead the Web to its full potential by developing technologies that will create a forum for information, commerce, inspiration, independent thought, and collective understanding.

Xerography
A method of reproducing text and/or images in which dry resinous toner transferred from an electro statically charged plate is thermally adhered to a sheet of paper or some other copying surface inside a photocopier.

Yearbook
An annual documentary, historical, or memorial compendium of facts, photographs, statistics, etc., about the events of the preceding year, often limited to a specific country, institution, discipline, or subject.

Zig-zag book
A book made by folding a continuous strip of paper backward and forward accordion-style. When the pages are sewn at the back fold, the strip is printed on one side only. When both sides are printed, the folds are left unsewn to allow the volume to be opened to its full length.

Zipf's Law
The principle that the frequency of the rth most common word or phrase in a relatively lengthy text is approximately 1/r, with r equal to its statistical rank in frequency. This means that the 10th most frequent word will be used about twice as often as the 20th most frequent word, and ten times more often than the 100th most frequent word.