- Authority list
- In order to reduce ambiguities and inconsistencies in indexing terms, vocabulary control is exercised by making and using only preferred terms from an authority list with cross-references from nonpreferred terms to preferred terms.
- Bibliography
- 1. Study or description of books and other publications. 2. A list of books or other publications.
- Culture
- Commonly used for “high culture,” such as opera, classical music, and art exhibitions, culture is used in this book in its academic sense: how we live our daily lives. In a commonly cited definition, “culture or civilization, taken in its wide ethnographic sense, is that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society” (Tylor 1871, 1).
- Document
- Record, usually a text; more generally, something regarded by someone as evidence of something.
- Epistemology
- The study of knowledge itself.
- Facet
- A distinct aspect resulting from a basic division; for example, what, when, where, who, why, and how are distinct and different facets of an event.
- Filtering
- Selecting from a flow of records by matching them against a stable query.
- Hypertext
- Text with passages that are linked to other passages.
- Infrastructure
- Ancillary resources that enable an undertaking to function. Originally used to refer to structures used for transportation and military operations, infrastructure has been gradually extended to include services ancillary to, or in support of, the performance of any large-scale undertaking.
- Intersubjective
- Subjective states shared by two or more individuals.
- Metadata
- Literally, beyond or with data. A common name for descriptions of documents, records, and data; data about data.
- Phenomenology
- The study of experience and consciousness.
- Phenomenon
- Something perceived.
- Photolithography
- Printing using printing plates with images created photographically.
- Photostat
- A photographic image made with a camera directly onto paper without an intermediate negative. An important document copying technique in the early twentieth century.
- Postcoordinate search
- In information retrieval, when two or more concepts can be combined in a search query at the time of search. See also precoordinate indexing.
- Precision
- The proportion of documents that are relevant within a retrieved set in information retrieval.
- Precoordinate indexing
- Indexing systems in which combinations of concepts are created as needed at the time of indexing. See also postcoordinate search.
- Preferred terms
- When indexing, vocabulary control is maintained by using only preferred terms on an authority list, with cross references from nonpreferred terms to preferred terms.
- Prosopography
- Study of a set of persons.
- Provenance
- The chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a document or historical object.
- Recall
- In information retrieval, the proportion of all relevant items in a collection that have been retrieved by a search.
- Relevance
- In information retrieval, the criterion of being a suitable response to a query.
- Relevant
- In information retrieval, considered to be a suitable response to a query.
- Retrieval
- A general term used for finding procedures, such as identifying (discovering the existence of documents); locating (“look-up,” when identified objects have known addresses); fetching (bringing an object from a known address); and selecting (in the sense of choosing).
- Semiotics
- The theory and study of signs and symbols, especially the meanings of words and documents.
- Vocabulary control
- Limitation of index terms to preferred terms, with cross-references from nonpreferred terms to preferred terms.