Examples
Aby, Stephen H., Nalen, James & Fielding, Lori (2005). Sociology; a guide to reference and information sources. 3rd ed. Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited.
Adams, Stephen R. (2005). Information Sources in Patents; 2nd ed. (Guides to Information Sources). München: K. G. Saur ISBN 3-598-24443-6
Blewett, Daniel K (2008). American military history; a guide to reference and information sources. 2nd ed. Westport, CT : Libraries Unlimited.
Jacoby, JoAnn & Kibbee, Josephine Z. (2007). Cultural anthropology; a guide to reference and information sources. 2nd ed. Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited.
Schmidt, Diane & Bell, George H. (2003). Guide to reference and information sources in the zoological sciences. Westport, Conn. : Libraries Unlimited.
O'Hare, Christine (2007). Business Information Sources. London: Library Assn Pub Ltd
Ostwald, W (1919). Die chemische Literatur und die Organisation der Wissenschaft. Leipzig : W. Ostwald & C. Drucker. (This is considered the first "guide to information sources").
Stebbins, Leslie F. (2006). Student guide to research in the digital age; how to locate and evaluate information sources. Westport, Conn.: Libraries Unlimited.
Webb, W. H. et al. (Ed.). (1986). Sources of information in the social sciences. A Guide to the literature. 3. ed. Chicago : American Library Association.
Zell, Hans M. (ed.). (2003). The African studies companion; a guide to information sources. 3rd rev. and expanded ed. Glais Bheinn : Hans Zell.
A reference work is a work, such as a paper, book or periodical, to which one can refer for information. The information is intended to be found quickly when needed. Such works are usually referred to for particular pieces of information, rather than read beginning to end. The writing style used in these works is informative; the authors avoid use of the first person, and emphasize facts.
Bibliography, as a discipline, is traditionally the academic study of books as physical, cultural objects; in this sense, it is also known as bibliology. English author and bibliographer John Carter describes bibliography as a word having two senses: one, a list of books for further study or of works consulted by an author ; the other one, applicable for collectors, is "the study of books as physical objects" and "the systematic description of books as objects".
This page is a glossary of library and information science.
Library collection development is the process of systematically building the collection of a particular library to meet the information needs of the library users in a timely and economical manner using information resources locally held as well as resources from other organizations.
In library and information science, cataloging (US) or cataloguing (UK) is the process of creating metadata representing information resources, such as books, sound recordings, moving images, etc. Cataloging provides information such as author's names, titles, and subject terms that describe resources, typically through the creation of bibliographic records. The records serve as surrogates for the stored information resources. Since the 1970s these metadata are in machine-readable form and are indexed by information retrieval tools, such as bibliographic databases or search engines. While typically the cataloging process results in the production of library catalogs, it also produces other types of discovery tools for documents and collections.
Grey literature is materials and research produced by organizations outside of the traditional commercial or academic publishing and distribution channels. Common grey literature publication types include reports, working papers, government documents, white papers and evaluations. Organizations that produce grey literature include government departments and agencies, civil society or non-governmental organizations, academic centres and departments, and private companies and consultants.
A bibliographic database is a database of bibliographic records, an organized digital collection of references to published literature, including journal and newspaper articles, conference proceedings, reports, government and legal publications, patents, books, etc. In contrast to library catalogue entries, a large proportion of the bibliographic records in bibliographic databases describe articles, conference papers, etc., rather than complete monographs, and they generally contain very rich subject descriptions in the form of keywords, subject classification terms, or abstracts.
Library and information science(s) or studies (LIS) is an interdisciplinary field of study that deals generally with organization, access, collection, and protection/regulation of information, whether in physical or digital forms.
Project MUSE, a non-profit collaboration between libraries and publishers, is an online database of peer-reviewed academic journals and electronic books. Project MUSE contains digital humanities and social science content from over 250 university presses and scholarly societies around the world. It is an aggregator of digital versions of academic journals, all of which are free of digital rights management (DRM). It operates as a third-party acquisition service like EBSCO, JSTOR, OverDrive, and ProQuest.
Readers' advisory is a service which involves suggesting fiction and nonfiction titles to a reader through direct or indirect means. This service is a fundamental library service; however, readers' advisory also occurs in commercial contexts such as bookstores. Currently, almost all North American public libraries offer some form of readers' advisory.
Library instruction, also called bibliographic instruction, user education and library orientation, consists of "instructional programs designed to teach library users how to locate the information they need quickly and effectively. [It] usually covers the library's system of organizing materials, the structure of the literature of the field, research methodologies appropriate to the academic discipline, and specific resources and finding tools " It prepares individuals to make immediate and lifelong use of information effectively by teaching the concepts and logic of information access and evaluation, and by fostering information independence and critical thinking. Above all they are aimed at equipping library users with skills to locate library sources and use them effectively to satisfy their information needs.
ABC-Clio, LLC is an American publishing company for academic reference works and periodicals primarily on topics such as history and social sciences for educational and public library settings. ABC-Clio provides service to fifteen different online databases which contain over one million online textbooks. The company consults academic leaders in the fields they cover in order to provide authority for their reference titles. The headquarters are located in Santa Barbara, California.
Music librarianship is the area of librarianship that pertains to music collections and their development, cataloging, preservation and maintenance, as well as reference issues connected with musical works and music literature. Music librarians usually have degrees in both music and librarianship. Music librarians deal with standard librarianship duties such as cataloging and reference, but the addition of music scores and recordings to collections complicates these tasks. Therefore, music librarians generally read music and have at least a basic understanding of both music theory and music history to aid in their duties.
A bibliographic index is a bibliography intended to help find a publication. Citations are usually listed by author and subject in separate sections, or in a single alphabetical sequence under a system of authorized headings collectively known as controlled vocabulary, developed over time by the indexing service. Indexes of this kind are issued in print periodical form, online, or both. Since the 1970s they are typically generated as output from bibliographic databases.
A bibliographic record is an entry in a bibliographic index which represents and describes a specific resource. A bibliographic record contains the data elements necessary to help users identify and retrieve that resource, as well as additional supporting information, presented in a formalized bibliographic format. Additional information may support particular database functions such as search, or browse, or may provide fuller presentation of the content item.
A pathfinder is a bibliography created to help begin research in a particular topic or subject area.. Pathfinders produced by the Library of Congress are known as "tracer bullets". What is special about a pathfinder is that it only refers to the information in a specific location, i.e. the shelves of a local library.
A metabibliography is a bibliography of bibliographies.
NewsBank is a news database resource that provides archives of media publications as reference materials to libraries.
Encyclopedia Cthulhiana is a reference guide to the invented places, beings, and concepts from the Cthulhu Mythos developed by H. P. Lovecraft and others. It was published by Chaosium in 1994.
Lustrum: Internationale Forschungsberichte aus dem Bereich des klassischen Altertums is a refereed review journal in the field of classical studies. Each volume typically contains only two articles, reviewing scholarship on a particular author, genre, or other subject within a specified timeframe. Articles appear in a variety of languages, including German and English. Lustrum is published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht in Göttingen. The first volume of Lustrum was published in 1957 and was for the year 1956; volumes are published annually. As of 2022, its editors are Marcus Deufert and Irmgard Männlein-Robert.
