Cataloging Vocabulary

1.      AACR2 -- the Anglo-American Cataloging Rules, 2nd edition, used since January, 1981 as the basic guideline for cataloging practice in libraries.

2. Access Points

    

3. ASCII -- is a character encoding based on the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that work with text. Most modern character encodings—which support many more characters than did the original—have a historical basis in ASCII. (wikipedia)

    

4.       Authority Control and Authority Files -- Authority control is a term used in library and information science to refer to the practice of creating and maintaining headings for bibliographic material in a catalog. Authority control fulfills two important functions. First, it enables catalogers to disambiguate items with similar or identical headings. For example, two authors who happen to have published under the same name can be distinguished from each other by adding middle initials, birth and/or death (or flourished, if these are unknown) dates, or a descriptive epithet to the heading of one (or both) authors. Second, authority control is used by catalogers to collocate materials that logically belong together, although they present themselves differently. For example, authority records are used to establish uniform titles, which can collocate all versions of a given work together even when they are issued under different titles.

5. Automation

    

6.       Bibliographic Records -- a catalog record corresponding to a book or other item in the library's collection.

7. Call Numbers (Dewey Decimal and Library of Congress), Cutter Tables and Numbers -- The number/letter system used to put the library collection in order on the shelves. Call numbers reflect subjects, so that materials on similar topics are shelved together.

    

Catalog and OPAC -- An Online Public Access Catalog or OPAC (aka iPAC for Internet/Intranet Public Access Catalogue) is a computerized online catalog of the materials held in a library, or library system. The library staff and the public can usually access it at computers within the library, or from home. OPAC terminals began to replace card catalogs in many libraries in the 1980s. Since the mid-1990s, these systems have increasingly migrated to Web-based interfaces. OPACs are often part of an integrated library system.

In its most simple form, a library's OPAC could consist of nothing more than a simple index of the bibliographic data cataloged in the system. More complex OPACs offer a variety of search capabilities on several indexes, integrate rich content (book covers, video clips, etc.), and offer interactive request and renewal functionality.

In the past, libraries made their catalogs available to users outside the library via means of a Telnet interface, usually accessible through a direct dial-up interface, or across the Internet. Today, most integrated library systems offer a browser-based OPAC (aka iPAC) module as a standard capability or optional feature. OPAC modules rely on pulldown menus, popup windows, dialog boxes, mouse operations, and other graphical user interface components to simplify the entry of search commands and formatting of retrieved information.

8.      CIP -- In publishing and library science, Cataloging in Publication (CIP, or Cataloguing in Publication) is basic cataloging data for a work, prepared in advance of publication by the national library of the country where the work is principally published or by the library of a publishing organisation such as a government department. The name reflects the usual practice of including that information in the corresponding publication -- in the case of books, near the bottom of the copyright page, and can be very useful for less experienced cataloguers when adding such items to their collections. The national libraries' CIP staffs restrict the range of publications that CIP will be prepared for, for instance requiring access to assistance from the publisher's staff.

An all too frequent problem with CIP is when publishers change bibliographic details, such as the wording of a title, after receiving the CIP data. The CIP data as published in the item will be incorrect and not able to be used by subsequent cataloguing agencies and if a pre-publication record has been entered onto a database it can be difficult to locate and edit to match the details on the item itself.

9. Copy Cataloging

    

10.   Dewey Decimal Classification -- The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC, also called the Dewey Decimal System) is a proprietary system of library classification developed by Melvil Dewey in 1876, and has since then been greatly modified and expanded through twenty-two major revisions, the most recent in 2004. The system is a method for placing books on library shelves in a specific and repeatable order that makes it easier to find any specific book or to return it to its proper place.

11. Descriptive Cataloging --

     

12.  URL--  Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) which also specifies where the identified resource is available and the protocol for retrieving it.^[1] In popular usage and in many technical documents it is often confused as a synonym for uniform resource identifier.  FTP -- a network protocol used to transfer data from one computer to another through a network such as the Internet.

         FTP is a file transfer protocol for exchanging and manipulating files over a TCP computer  network. A FTP client may connect to a FTP server to manipulate files on that server.

13. General Material Designation --

     

14.  ISBD -- , is a set of rules produced by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) to describe a wide range of library materials within the context of a catalog. The consolidated edition of the ISBD was published in 2007. It superseded earlier separate ISBDs that were published for monographs, older monographic publications, cartographic materials, serials and other continuing resources, electronic resources, non-book materials, and printed music. IFLA's ISBD Review Group is responsible for maintaining the ISBD.

One of the original purposes of the ISBD was to provide a standard form of bibliographic description that could be used to exchange records internationally. This would support IFLA's program of universal bibliographic control.

 ISBN -- is a unique, numerical^[1]commercialbookidentifier, based upon the 9-digit Standard Book Numbering (SBN) code created in the UK by the booksellers and stationers W.H. Smith and others in 1966.^[2] The 10-digit International Standard Book Number (ISBN) format was developed by the International Organization for Standardization and published as an international standard, ISO 2108, in 1970. (However, the 9-digit SBN code was used in the UK until 1974.) Currently, the ISO TC 46/SC 9 is responsible for the standard., ISSN --  An International Standard Serial Number (ISSN) is a unique eight-digit number used to identify a print or electronic periodical publication. The ISSN system was adopted as international standardISO 3297 in 1975. The ISO subcommittee TC 46/SC 9 is responsible for the standard.

15. Library of Congress Classification and Library of Congress Control Number

     

16. MARC and USMARC -- machine readable cataloging. Cataloging which has been tagged for input into a database according to internationally agreed upon standards.

     

17.   OCLC -- The OCLC Online Computer Library Center is, according to its website, a "nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purpose of furthering access to the world's information and reducing information costs". Founded in 1967 as the Ohio College Library Center, more than 60,000 libraries in 112 countries and territories around the world use OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend and preserve library materials.^[1] The organization was founded by Fred Kilgour, and its offices are located in Dublin, Ohio, U.S.A.

18. Retrospective Conversion

     

19. Sears' List of Subject Headings

     

20. Precataloged Records

     

Definitions provided by Wikipedia.