University of Szeged Klebelsberg Library
Term | Definition |
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Autocomplete function | Databases automatically display options for searching (e.g. author, subject). |
Bibliographic data | Bibliographic data is the data that identifies a work, the most basic of which are the author, title and publication details. Bibliographic data is stored in data fields in the database. |
Bibliographic record | A document description unit, which contains the bibliographical data necessary for the identification of the work in a uniform structure. |
Bibliography | From the Greek words byblos and graphia = to collect data of books. A bibliography is a list of documents arranged according to their bibliographic data.
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Boolean operators | Operational signals that describe the relationship between search terms in electronic databases. They can be used to specify the overlapping (common) part (AND operation) or the set (OR operation) of result sets corresponding to the searched terms, or the subset containing one term and excluding the other (NOT operation). |
Citation | A citation is a reference that authors use in their own work to point to an idea or a finding that originates from another author, with the specific bibliographic source of that idea or finding indicated. |
Citation manager | An offline or online application designed to help you gather material from the start of your research and provide a practical toolkit for the writing process.
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Citation style | A citation style is a consistent way of formatting references and citations to the sources used in a paper. Typically, institutions develop citation styles and expect authors who publish with them to adhere to these standards. Different styles are identified by the name of the institution that created them, e.g. MLA, APA, Harvard. |
Codex | Codex (plural codices) is a term collectively used for handwritten books. Codices were most commonly used in the Middle Ages, before the advent of printing. Initially, the parchment sheets were placed between wooden boards, hence the name codex, from the Latin word 'caudex', meaning 'block of wood'. |
Collection | Refers to the stock of books and periodicals as well as other printed and electronic documents held by libraries. |
Collection scope | Refers to the range of publications (defined in terms of type and/or topic) regularly acquired by a given library in accordance with its Collections Policy. |
Colophon | A colophon is a brief statement printed on the reverse side of the title page of a book or at the end of a book, containing certain technical information as well as publication information. |
Copyright | Copyright is the right of the creator of an intellectual work to control its use, which also means that it cannot be freely copied or used without attribution. |
Cuneiform script | Cuneiform script is a type of writing invented by the Sumerians in the 4th millennium BC, which involved using a sharpened reed stylus to record information on a wet piece of clay. In its original form, it was similar to pictographic writing, attempting to depict objects and concepts. Eventually, it became increasingly abstract and more and more similar to alphabetic writing. |
Data aggregator | A company that builds databases of resources from multiple publishers; or a database that provides a collection of such resources. |
Data field | A small unit of a database record used to store individual pieces of data. In a library catalogue, a data field refers to for example author, title, subject, etc. |
Database | A database is an organised collection of records consisting of multiple data fields. A computer record with a logical structure for storing and retrieving information. One type of library database is the library catalogue, where the record is the catalogue card containing the details of the work, and the data fields are its individual bibliographic data. |
Database record | A collection of independently manageable, logically related data fields, one of the basic units of a computer database. |
The deep / invisible web | It belongs to the deep or invisible Web, which is not visible to general search engines and/or cannot be indexed by their search robots. This could include closed forums and their posts, emails stored in our electronic mailbox, our e-banking transactions, some social networking sites, closed databases or library catalogues, or any site with a code that prevents it from being indexed. |
Digital literacy | Digital literacy is the ability to navigate and make complex use of the content services provided by modern IT tools. |
Digital Object Identifier (DOI) | The Digital Object Identifier (DOI) is a code used internationally to uniquely identify each digital document, while also functioning as a link to the online document it identifies. |
Digital Rights Management (DRM) | Digital Rights Management (DRM) is a software solution that ensures that only the rightful owner of a purchased piece of content can actually use it. The term refers not only to the range of technological solutions that provide technical and legal protection for digital content in general, but also to a specific software-based way of implementing such protection. |
Digitization | The transfer of information stored on an analog carrier to a computer by using a special device, which converts traditional analog symbols into digits. |
Disciplinary | Research within one discipline. A disciplinary database is a database with documents covering only one discipline. |
Document | The term 'document' is a general collective term for information carriers, which covers not only traditional information carriers (books, periodicals, etc.), but also audiovisual and electronic information carriers. |
E-book | A document format containing text and images that is created and distributed electronically and can only be read using a digital device and special software. A true e-book is not in a bound format, so its layout adapts to the screen of the device; part of its layout can be changed while reading. |
E-ink | It is a technology specifically developed for displaying e-books. It is based on millions of tiny microcapsules that contain positively charged white pigments and negatively charged black pigments, all “floating” in a special transparent liquid. These white and black pigments become visible on the electronic paper depending on the electric charge applied. |
eduID | The eduID is an alliance of academic institutions that aims to make web user identification between and within institutions consistent, transparent and therefore easy to manage. It is also an international user ID for higher education institutions, allowing the use of self-created and subscribed databases with a single registration. The relationship with the institution is constantly monitored, ensuring that only authorised users have access to certain content. With this identifier, databases subscribed to in the institution can be accessed remotely, not only within the institution. At the same time, institutions form a federation of trust, whose members accept each other's users as identified. Thus, a user is identified by the system when visiting any member of the federation and is able to access the online services belonging to them. |
Electronic document | Documents are considered to be ‘electronic documents’ if they carry information in digital form, regardless of their content. |
Electronic library | A library-like collection of documents stored in digital format, or part of a traditional library's collection of electronic documents, now mostly accessible remotely via the Internet. |
Filter (facet) | In databases, including library catalogues, it means the ability to enable and disable various filtering criteria, so that the given set of results* can be further narrowed down by using facets, e.g. by genre, language, year, etc. |
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Glossary | A glossary is a list of terms used in a particular field of knowledge that explains words related to that field of knowledge. It traditionally appears at the end of a book, where it lists new (or at least not commonly known) words and phrases used in the book. |
Hieroglyphics | Hieroglyphics is the advanced pictographic script used by the ancient Egyptians, whose signs had abstract meanings. |
Imprint | An imprint provides information about the editor(s), the publisher, and the printer of a periodical. |
Incunable / incunabulum | Incunabula are books produced in the first era of printing, before 31 December 1500. They were more like codices than the books of today. |
Initial capital | In codices and early books, the name of a larger, decorated initial letter that introduces a column, chapter or paragraph. The name comes from the Latin initium = beginning. |
Interdisciplinary | Multidisciplinary collaboration, interdisciplinary research. Effective research requires several disciplines to work together in terms of content and methodology. An ‘interdisciplinary’ database is a database with documents covering multiple disciplines. |
Interlibrary loan | Interlibrary loan is the name of a group of library services. It is based on cooperation between libraries to provide users with documents that are not available locally. In Hungary, the service is coordinated by the National Széchényi Library, in a network of thousands of Hungarian and foreign libraries that send and receive documents. Individuals can make inter-library requests as registered members of partner libraries in the system. They can order books, digital or paper copies of journal articles, manuscripts or any type of library document. |
ISBN-number | ISBN is short for International Standard Book Number, which is a code used internationally to uniquely identify each book. |
ISSN-number | ISSN is short for International Standard Serial Number, which is a code used internationally to uniquely identify each periodical. |
Joker | A special symbol (e.g. * or ?) used to replace one or more characters (letters or numbers) in a database or computer program to indicate that any letter or number can be there. See also: truncation |
Legal Deposit | Legal deposit is a legal obligation which requires any organisation or individual producing any type of documentation in multiple copies to deposit one or more copies with a recognised national institution, usually a national library. |
Library catalogue / catalog | The system, that allows versatile retrieval of documents, previously in the form of lists and then of cards, now mostly operates as an online catalogue. A database, usually free of charge, containing mainly electronic records of the library's holdings. It may also include other databases and services in addition to the library's collection. It is also known as an OPAC (Open Public Access Catalogue). |
Metadata | The term 'metadata' means data about data. In terms of library documents, it provides key data in connection with a given document so that it can be easily identified and retrieved. |
Metasearch engine | A web-based application that submits a search term or phrase entered by the user to various search engines and web directories in the appropriate formats and searches them all simultaneously. The search engine then displays the results in a combined list, starting with the one it considers most relevant and filtering out any duplicates. |
Miniature | A ‘miniature’ is a relatively small, hand-painted illustration used to decorate the pages of codices. |
Open Access | Under open access, scientific results are accessible to anyone, and funds for publication are collected from the authors of articles and books. Open Access has several models:
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Optical character recognition (OCR) | Optical character recognition, often abbreviated as OCR, is the electronic conversion of typed, handwritten or printed, i.e. analogue, text by computer equipment. From a scanned document, or even a photograph of a document, an optical character recognition (OCR) program with artificial intelligence recognises the letters and assembles them into words, even correcting them with language dictionaries. It is widely used for converting printed documents into computer files, and is how most PDF-documents are created from analogue documents. |
Papyrus scroll | A papyrus scroll is a material made from papyrus reeds, suitable for writing, which is stored rolled up. |
Parchment | Finely worked animal skin, initially stored in scrolls (like papyrus), later in folded sheets. Many of the codices were also written on this material. Parchment was invented in the ancient city of Pergamon. |
PDF or Portable Document Format | The most common document standard, designed primarily for formatted, almost "print-ready" documents. PDF files have very limited editing capabilities, but can be viewed and read with a wide range of programs. If the scanned PDF is made from an analogue book, it can be a series of images only, or it can be one where the text is OCR-recognised. This creates a so-called "two-layer" PDF, with scanned images of the book pages, but with searchable and copyable text underneath the images. The already digitised text is converted into a PDF that retains the graphic appearance and contains the text as described above. |
Periodical | A periodical is a published work that appears at regular intervals with new content. The most common examples are newspapers, magazines or journals. |
Pictographic writing | This is one of the oldest forms of writing, in which things were represented by a sketchy picture. A special, advanced form is the hieroglyphs used by the Egyptians. |
Plagiarism | It is plagiarism to use someone else's text verbatim or in paraphrase, or to paraphrase someone else's original idea in your own text without attributing the original author. Accurate attribution allows the ideas and text of the source to be clearly distinguished from the author. This is important for two reasons:
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Repository | A repository is an electronic library collection (database) primarily for archiving and sharing documents. It is usually created in universities and research institutes. It describes the uploaded documents, makes them available for download and links them to other databases. This often allows repository indexing systems to connect documents to the world's scholarly bloodstream. |
Responsive | Responsive refers to the way a document, whether a web page or other electronic document, scrolls across different devices and adapts to the screen of the device. In effect, its format is unbounded and can be transformed in use. |
Search term | A keyword or combination of keywords used in a literature search to describe the topic that is being researched. Well chosen search terms optimise the number of relevant results. |
Truncation | The technique of searching text databases by entering only part of the word you are looking for and using a special character (e.g. * or ?) to indicate that the word is incomplete. Most systems can handle words truncated from the right (the beginning of the word is entered), some can handle words truncated from the left (the end of the word is entered). See also: joker |
Universal Decimal Classification (UDC) | A library method of organising knowledge and its carriers on the basis of decimal numbers. The system divides subjects into ten main classes, each of which is subdivided into ten classes, and so on. This system is particularly practical in libraries with large reading rooms, where the physical arrangement of documents tends to be based on this system or a simplified version of it. However, as computerised library processing becomes more widespread, this is becoming less important. |