Glossary
- author
- A person or corporate body responsible for the content of a resource, including editors and illustrators as well as writers.
- author keyword search
- A search carried out on an index containing the names of authors associated with items described by a catalogue. The search term can be any word from the personal or corporate name. CAIRNS catalogues differ in which authors are contained in the index; please see the collections information for more details.
- author search
- A search carried out on an index containing the names of authors associated with items described by a catalogue. The search term for a personal author should be inverted, with the surname followed by forenames; the search term for a corporate author is in normal order, but without any initial articles such as 'The'. CAIRNS catalogues differ in which authors are contained in the index; please see the collections information for more details.
- brief record
- A minimum amount of information about an item in a collection, sufficient to identify it.
- CAIRNS
- Co-operAtive Information Retrieval Network for Scotland. A distributed Z39.50 union catalogue for Scottish libraries.
- CDLR
- Centre for Digital Library Research. Based at Strathclyde University in Glasgow.
- CIE
- Common Information Environment.
- CILIPS
- Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland. Formerly the Scottish Library Association.
- collection
- A set of items containing the results of intellectual creation, such as books, paintings, archives, websites, and museum objects. A set can be defined in terms of its intellectual coherence (e.g. a collection created by a person), location (e.g. a campus library), or organisational purpose (e.g. a University library). The set of items describing a collection is also a collection; that is, a catalogue containing records describing items in a library is treated as a collection of metadata (catalogue records). In CAIRNS, 'collections' can include catalogues; 'catalogues' refers to sets of online metadata accessible by CAIRNS. CAIRNS uses collection definitions and descriptions from the Research Support Libraries Programme Collection Level Description schema.
- ESH
- Exploring Scottish history; a publication and associated database of the Scottish Local History Forum and the Scottish Library Association detailing genealogical resources in Scotland.
- full keyword
- A whole word; that is, text preceded and followed by spaces, or the first or last whole word in the data.
- full record
- All available information about an item in a collection.
- general keyword search
- A search carried out on an index containing words associated with items described by a catalogue. The search term is any word. CAIRNS catalogues differ in which keywords are contained in the index; please see the collections information for more details.
- HAIRST
- Harvesting Institutional Resources in Scotland Testbed.
- ISBN
- The International Standard Book Number is a unique 10 digit number identifying a specific edition or printing of a book. Different numbers are often given to the hardback and paperback versions of a book, as well as reprints by different publishers.
The first part of the number identifies the language of the book and the publisher, the middle part is a unique number assigned by the publisher, and the last digit is a "check digit" created by applying a mathematical formula to the first 9 digits. The check digit can be "X", representing the number 10, which is allowed by the formula.
- ISBN search
- A search carried out on an index containing ISBNs associated with items described by a catalogue. The search term is the whole ISBN. CAIRNS catalogues differ in which ISBNs are contained in the index; please see the collections information for more details.
- ISSN
- The International Standard Serial Number is a unique 8 digit number identifying a specific serial title. A different number is assigned every time a serial changes title.
- ISSN search
- A search carried out on an index containing ISSNs associated with items described by a catalogue. The search term is the whole ISSN. CAIRNS catalogues differ in which ISSNs are contained in the index; please see the collections information for more details.
- keyword
- A piece of text present anywhere in the data being searched.
- miniclump
- A set of CAIRNS collections and searches pre-defined for a special group of CAIRNS users. Groups include projects and library partnerships and cooperatives.
- RCO
- Research Collections Online. A service created by SCURL to assess subject strengths of general collections of interest to researchers.
- SCONE project
- Scottish Collections Network Extension project.
- SCONE service
- Scottish Collections Network.
- SCURL
- Scottish Confederation of University and Research Libraries.
- search results
- search term
- The text to be searched in a CAIRNS one-stop search.
- searches
- Searches in CAIRNS are carried out on indexes containing information from the catalogue descriptions of items in a collection. There are 9 types of search available in CAIRNS: author, author keyword, title, title keyword, subject, subject keyword, general keyword, ISBN, and ISSN. Note that the 'simple' CAIRNS search uses only the general keyword search, and the choice of available searches is restricted in some miniclumps.
- serial
- A resource that is published continuously as a series of parts, or which is updated continously. Serials can include magazines, journals, annuals, updating services, and websites.
- SLA
- Scottish Library Association. Now the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland.
- subject keyword search
- A search carried out on an index containing subjects associated with items described by a catalogue. The search term can be any word from a subject topic. CAIRNS catalogues differ in which subjects are contained in the index; please see the collections information for more details.
- subject search
- A search carried out on an index containing subjects associated with items described by a catalogue. The search term can be the whole, of first few words of, a subject topic. CAIRNS catalogues differ in which subjects are contained in the index; please see the collections information for more details.
- SWOP
- Scottish Working Group on Official Publications which maintains a directory of collections of national government and international agency publications.
- title keyword search
- A search carried out on an index containing the titles of items described by a catalogue. The search term contains any word from the title to be searched. CAIRNS catalogues differ in which titles are contained in the index; please see the collections information for more details.
- title search
- A search carried out on an index containing the titles of items described by a catalogue. The search term contains the whole, or first few words of, the title to be searched. CAIRNS catalogues differ in which titles are contained in the index; please see the collections information for more details.
- truncated keyword
- A truncated keyword is part of a full keyword. e.g. "tom", "tomor" and "morr" are all truncations of the full keyword "tomorrow". A truncated keyword can be associated with more than one full keyword. e.g. "tom" is a truncation of the full keywords "atom", "atomic" and "tome".
- Z server
- A library system which can accept Z39.50 searches from one or more external library systems.
- Z39.50
- A means of translating a search entered in an automated library system so that it can be carried out in one or more other library systems.
