Information/Communication Module
Glossary
   
A:

Abstract: a short summary placed prior to the introduction, used to help readers determine the purpose of the paper.

Almanac: a single-volume reference book containing facts, data, tables, charts, lists, and other methods of organizing useful information.

Analytical information: interpretation and analyses of facts, usually by experts.

Appendix: (pl. appendices) a short section at the end of a book, often used for supplementary information.

Archive: a collection of records, charters and other documents belonging to any state, community or family, and the building it's kept in.

Atlas: a collection of maps.


B:

Bibliography: an overview of (almost) all publications in some category:
  • works of an author; publications about a specific subject; publications published in a specific country; publications published in a specific period.
  • publications mentioned in, or relevant to, a particular work; a bibliography in this sense, sometimes called a reference list should normally appear at the end of any paper in the scientific literature.

Biographical Source: provides concise background information about the lives and accomplishments of famous people, living or dead.

Book: a literary work or a main division of such a work. A book produced in electronic format is known as an e-book.


C:

Call Number: the numbers/letters assigned to an item in the library, helping you to find its location.  Example: Generation X Americans Born 1965 to 1976, Call Number: HF 5415.33U6 G462 2004.

Charter: a document bestowing certain rights on a town, city, university or institution.

Chronology: a reference book that presents information organized by date.

Citation: a reference or footnote to an item (such as a book or periodical); contains the author, title, date of publication, and other information needed to locate the item.

Concept: a general plan.

Content: the substance of a document.

Context: the meaning of a message (such as a sentence), its relationship to other parts of the message (such as a book), the environment in which the communication occurred, and any perceptions which may be associated with the communication.


D:

Data: simple observation of the state of the world without any interpretive meaning. It represents a fact or statement of an event without relation to other things. Data that has meaning by way of a relational connection becomes information.

Dictionary: provides information about words, such as their definitions and uses.


E:

E-Book: a book in electronic format.

Encyclopedia: contains articles on a variety of subjects written by experts, arranged in alphabetical order by topic.

ERIC - Educational Resources Information Center: the call number for ERIC microfiche documents looks like: ED 1.310/2:450956

Ethernet: a computer networking technology for local area networks (LANs).


F:

Factual Information: pure facts, without any opinions, evaluation or interpretation. Usually presented in reference sources such as dictionaries, atlases and handbooks. Used to answer questions on size, population or economic indicators for the State of Idaho, for example the (Idaho Blue Book at: http://www.idsos.state.id.us/elect/bluebook.htm)


G:

Glossary: a list of difficult or specialized words, along with their definitions.

Government Documents: sources printed by or for government agencies.

Government Information: government documents published by the local, state, or federal government.


H:

HTML: (HyperText Markup Language) is a markup language designed for creating web pages, that is, information presented on the World Wide Web.

Hyperlink: (also called link) is a reference in a hypertext document that links to another document or other resource.

Hypertext: system for displaying information that contains references (called hyperlinks) to other information on the system, and for easily publishing, updating and searching for the information. The most well known hypertext system is the World Wide Web.


I:

Index: (pl. indices) a pointer that takes you to information. Traditionally found at the back of a book.  It complements the contents page because it gives access to information by its specific name.

Information: Everything (ideas, facts and imaginative works of mind) that has been created or studied by the human mind and published, distributed formally or informally in any format (American Library Association). Information provides answers to "who", "what", "where", and "when" questions.

Internet: a computer network that connects a worldwide network of computers, that use TCP/IP protocols to facilitate data transmission and exchange. Also called cyberspace, Net, or net of networks. The Internet is used for e-mail, Usenet news groups, instant messaging, FTP, Telent, and the World Wide Web (Web). Remember, the Internet is not the Web!

Interview: a series of questions to learn information leading toward publication or broadcast.

Invisible Web: part of the World Wide Web that general search engines that, due to technical limitations or deliberate choice, cannot access.


J:

Journal: a type of periodical which contains signed scholarly articles. Journals often require higher than common knowledge in a particular field to fully comprehend.


K:

Keyword: the most important word(s) in a title.

Knowledge: represents the application of data and information. Usually answers "how" questions.


L:

Local Area Network: a computer network covering a local area, like a home, office or small group of buildings such as a college.



M:

Magazine: a type of periodical containing popular articles which are usually shorter or less authoritative than journal articles on the same subject.

Markup Language: is a kind of text encoding that represents text as well as details about the structure and appearance of the text.

Meta Search Engine: a system that searches more than one search engine / directory at a time.

Microfiche: photographically reduced images reproduced on small 5" by 8" sheets of film.

Microfilm: photographically reduced images of printed pages on 35mm film.

Multimedia: the use of several different media to convey information (text, audio, graphics, animation, video, and interactivity. Multimedia also refers to computer media).


N:

News Search Engine: search engine that searches many news sites (hundreds or thousands) many times a day.


O:

Objective Information: presents all sides of a topic without any interpretation.

Online Database: computer database that provides access by author, title, keyword, and subject to a group of publications.

Oral History: an account of something passed down by word of mouth from one generation to another.


P:

Periodical: materials published at regular intervals (at least 3 times a year) and intended to be continued indefinitely.

Primary Information: information in its original form, that has not been put into a context or interpreted or translated by anyone else or published anywhere else.

Print On Demand (POD): ??? (add definition)


R:

Radio: a technology that allows the transmission of signals by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of light.

Reference Materials: In a library, the word reference may refer to a dictionary, encyclopedia, or other work that contains many brief articles that cover a broad scope of knowledge in one book, or a set of books. However, the word reference is also used to mean a book that cannot be taken from the room, or from the building.

Review List: a reviewed list of high quality websites.


S:

Salmon in Idaho: ??? (add definition)

Search Engine: a program designed to help one access files stored on a computer, for example a public server on the World Wide Web.

Secondary Information: information taken from its original source and repackaged (interpreted, analyzed, presented from a different point of view.

Serial: materials issued at regular or irregular intervals and intended to continue indefintely.

Specialized Search Engine: search engine that focuses on a specific interest; also, a search engine that searches the invisible web.

Statistical Information: contains statistics on different topics, may include abstracts or summaries of data from longer reports.

Statistical Source: see Statistical Information.

Subject Directory: a directory that categorizes resources on the web by subject areas.

Subjective Information: opinions expressed on a topic.


T:

Television: a telecommunication system for broadcasting and receiving moving pictures and sound over a distance.

Tertiary Information: information that leads you to secondary information (ex. the bibliography that accompanies an encyclopedia article).


U:

URL: the abbreviation for Uniform Resource Locator. URLs are a standard way of specifying the location of Internet computer files. Using a URL allows you to retrieve a file from any computer on the Internet, or tell someone else how to retrieve it. URLs are the form of address used on the World Wide Web. They are used in HTML documents to specify the target of a hyperlink, which is often another HTML document.  An example of a URL would be http://www.idfishnhunt.com/issu.html.

http:// is now commonly used, and so there is usually no need to include it when opening a web document. The remaining parts of a URL are separated by either a full stop (dot) or a slash. The six main protocols used in URLs are:

ftp:// - FTP directory of downloadable data or program files
gopher:// - Gopher server
http:// - Document on the World Wide Web
mailto: - Electronic mail
news: - Usenet newsgroup
telnet:// - Application program running on a remote host


V:

Visible Web: part of the World Wide Web that includes pages visible through general search engines.


W:

World Wide Web: an Internet, hypertext, distributed information retrieval system. It is a client-server, hypermedia distributed information retrieval system that was developed by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 at the European Physics Laboratory (CERN) in Geneva. Documents on the Web can be accessed via the file transfer protocol (FTP), the gopher protocol, the standard terminal emulation protocol (Telnet), or the network news transfer protocol (news), and mostly by the hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) used to transfer hypertext documents..