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Academic Libraries (AL) Glossary
Academic Library
An entity in a postsecondary institution that provides an organized collection of printed or other materials, or a combination thereof; a staff trained to provide and interpret such materials as required to meet the informational, cultural, recreational, or educational needs of the clientele; an established schedule in which services of the staff are available to the clientele; an established schedule in which services of the staff are available to the clientele; and the physical facilities necessary to support such a collection, staff, and schedule. This definition includes libraries that are part of learning resource centers.
Access rights
Access rights may be acquired by the library itself, by a consortium and/or through external funding. Acquisition is to be understood as deliberately selecting a document, securing access rights and including it in the OPAC (online public access catalog) or other databases of the library. Interlibrary lending and document delivery are excluded.
Audiovisual Materials
Materials that are displayed by visual projection or magnification, or through sound reproduction, or both, including sound recordings, motion pictures and video recordings, and graphic materials. Also included in this category are special visual materials such as three-dimensional artifacts and realia, and web-based audiovisual resources. This includes audio documents such as records, tapes, cassettes, audio compact discs, files of digital audio recordings; visual documents such as slides, transparencies, and combined audiovisual documents such as motion pictures, video recordings, etc. Microforms are excluded.
Bibliographic utilities, networks and consortia
Services provided by national, regional, and local bibliographic utilities networks, and consortia.
Books
Books are non-serial printed publications, including music, that have hard or soft covers or are in loose-leaf format.
Branch and independent libraries
Auxiliary library service outlets with quarters separate from the central library that houses the basic collection. The central library administers the branches. Libraries on branch campuses that have separate NCES identification numbers are reported as separate libraries.
Cartographic Material
Materials representing in whole or in part the earth or any celestial body at any scale (e.g., maps and charts)
Computer hardware and software operating expenses
These include expenses from the library budget for computer hardware and software used to support library operations, whether purchased or leased, mainframe or microcomputer. Expenses for maintenance and the expense to run information services when it cannot be separated from the price of the product are also included in this category.
Database
Collection of electronically stored data or unit records (facts, bibliographic data, and texts) with a common user interface and software for the retrieval and manipulation of the data. The data or records are usually collected with a particular intent and relate to a defined topic. Each database is counted individually even if access to several databases is supported through the same vendor interface.
Discovery system
A discovery system product consists of an interface directed toward the users of a library to find materials in its collections and subsequently to gain access to items of interest through the appropriate mechanisms. Discovery systems tend to be independent from the specific applications that libraries implement to manage resources, such as integrated library systems, library services platforms, repository platforms, or electronic resource management systems. In most cases they provide access to multiple types of materials, independently of the management platform involved. Discovery systems provide an interface with search and retrieval capabilities, often with features such as relevancy-based ordering of search results, facets presented that can be selected to narrow results according to specific categories, contributors, or date ranges, and tools to identify related materials or to refine search queries. Examples of discovery systems can be found at
http://librarytechnology.org/discovery/.
E-books
E-books are digital documents (including those digitized by the library), licensed or not, where searchable text is prevalent, and which can be seen in analogy to a printed book (monograph). E-books are loaned to users on portable devices (e-book readers) or by transmitting the contents to the user's personal computer for a limited time.
E-media
E-media materials are media materials that are in digital format and are available for download or streaming. Include digital graphic materials.
E-serial
An e-serial is a publication issued in successive parts bearing numerical or chronological designations, is intended to be continued indefinitely, and is published in digital form to be displayed on a computer screen in any medium. This definition includes digital and digitized periodicals, newspapers, and annuals (reports, yearbooks, etc.); the journals, memoirs, proceedings, transactions, etc. of societies; and numbered monographic series.
Fringe benefits
Cash contributions in the form of supplementary or deferred compensation other than salary. Excludes the employee's contribution. Employee fringe benefits include retirement plans, social security taxes, medical/dental plans, guaranteed disability income protection plans, tuition plans, housing plans, unemployment compensation plans, group life insurance plans, worker's compensation plans, pension, and other benefits in-kind with cash options.
Graphic materials
Opaque (e.g., two-dimensional) art originals and reproductions, charts, photographs or materials intended to be projected or viewed without sound, e.g., filmstrips, transparencies, photographs, posters, pictures, radiographs, slides, and collections of such materials. [NISO Z39.7-2013, section 4.6]
Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS)
Interlibrary loan services
Interlibrary loan is the process by which a library requests material from, or supplies material to, another library" where "'material' includes books, audiovisual materials, and other returnable items as well as copies of journal articles, book chapters, excerpts, and other non-returnable items.
Library collections
Comprise of documents held locally and remote resources for which permanent or temporary access rights have been acquired. Access rights may be acquired by the library itself, by a consortium and/or through external funding. Acquisition is to be understood as securing access rights and including it in the library catalog, other library databases or discovery systems.
Library Consortia
A library consortium is any local, statewide, regional, or interstate cooperative association of libraries that provides for the systematic and effective coordination of the resources of schools, public, academic, and special libraries and information centers, for improving services to the clientele of such libraries. (U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, Sect. 54.500)
Library expenses
Funds expended by the library (regardless of when received) from its regular budget and from all other sources; e.g., research grants, special projects, gifts and endowments, and fees for services.
Media materials
Titles of all library materials that include audio visual materials, cartographic materials, graphic materials, and three-dimensional artefacts and realia.
Microform
Microforms are photographic reproduction of textual, tabular, or graphic material reduced in size so that they can be used only with magnification. Examples of microforms are roll microfilm, aperture cards, microfiche, ultrafiche, and reproductions on opaque material.
Non-Returnables
Materials that the library does not expect to have returned. Examples of non-returnables include photocopies or facsimiles, fiche-to-fiche copies, print copies from microfilm, electronic full-text documents, and gratis print copies of unpublished reports and/or departmental working papers.
Ongoing commitments to subscriptions
Ongoing commitments in all formats, including duplicates, for all outlets. This includes serials and any other items committed to annually, as well as annual e-platform or access fees. Serials are publications issued in successive parts, usually at regular intervals, and, as a rule, intended to be continued indefinitely. Print-based serial subscriptions include periodicals, newspapers, annuals (reports, yearbooks, etc.), memoirs, proceedings, and transactions of societies. Include the costs of electronic serials bought in aggregations and serial packages. Include abstracting and indexing services and any database that requires an annual subscription fee. Do not include subscription fees if they are part of an annual consortium fee. Government documents received serially are included if they are accessible through the library's catalog.
Preservation
Activities associated with maintain library and archival materials for use in their original form or some other usable way. Examples include rebinding, de-acidification, restoration, lamination, materials conservation and digitization.
Returnables
Materials that the library expects to have returned. Examples of returnables include books, dissertations and theses, microfilm reels, sound recordings, and audiovisual material.
Salaries and wages
Amounts paid as compensation for services to all employees - faculty, staff, part-time, full-time, regular employees, and student employees. This includes regular or periodic payment to a person for the regular or periodic performance of work or a service and payment to a person for more sporadic performance of work or a service (overtime, extra compensation, summer compensation, bonuses, sick or annual leave, etc.).
Serial
A serial is a publication in any medium issued in successive parts bearing numerical or chronological designations and intended to be continued indefinitely. This definition includes periodicals, newspapers, and annuals (reports, yearbooks, etc.); the journals, memoirs, proceedings, transactions, etc. of societies; and numbered monographic series.
Serial back-files
Previous issues of serial titles that libraries buy back (such as back issues of magazines).
Serial subscriptions
Publications issued in successive parts, usually at regular intervals, and, as a rule, intended to be continued indefinitely. Serial subscriptions include periodicals, newspapers, annuals (reports, yearbooks, etc.), memoirs, proceedings, and transactions of societies.
Serial titles
Titles of serials collected.
Title
Use the ANSI/NISO Z39.7-2004 definition for title as follows: The designation of a separate bibliographic whole, whether issued in one or several parts. A book or serial title may be distinguished from other such titles by its unique International Standard Book Number (ISBN) or International Standard Serial Number (ISSN). This definition applies equally to print, electronic, audiovisual, and other library materials. For unpublished works, the term is used to designate a manuscript collection or an archival record series. Two subscriptions to Science magazine, for example, are counted as one title.
Title IV institution
An institution that has a written agreement with the Secretary of Education that allows the institution to participate in any of the Title IV federal student financial assistance programs (other than the State Student Incentive Grant (SSIG) and the National Early Intervention Scholarship and Partnership (NEISP) programs).
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