Library Science Glossary

Aboutness	One of the properties of an online resource that the resource itself usually does not express.

Application profile	A set of procedures for using a particular application of Dublin Core that tries to make up for DC's weaknesses by making it more MARC-like.

Canonical metadata record	The MARC record

Coalition for Networked Information	An organization dedicated to expanding and servicing the enormous ego of Clifford Lynch.

Cross references	The solution to the problem of variation in entry vocabulary in searching and information retrieval

Dark Archive	A database you can only use at night.

Deterministic search	A type of search that uses one-to-one matching between a search query and metadata (including cross references) that function as surrogates for information resources. This is the type of search that is done in an online library catalog.

Digital preservation	The process of trying to make digital resources be more like library books.

Federated searching	Removing links to information resources from an online library catalog and then paying a company for expensive software that brings them all together again

Graphic novels	Thick comic books

Knowledgebase	A database that you have to pay for

Legacy Melvyl Catalog	A defunct, dead, and obsolete catalog whose creators now arrogantly purport to tell the rest of us how we should create library information retrieval systems

MARC	The most successful metadata scheme in the history of mankind

Metadata mudball	A cute way to describe an aggregation of metadata that takes away the precision and recall advantages that metadata is supposed to add

Probabilistic search	See Stochastic search

References, Blind	See Blind references

References, Cross	See Cross references

Scan bleed	Text from the other side of the page that appears in a digitized copy of a printed work

SKOS	Stupid Knowledge Organization System

Standards development	A way to get free vacations in exotic locations

Stochastic search	A type of search that relies on algorithms to select and rank search results retrieved from a database search. Stochastic search is also called "probabilistic search" because the algorithms return results that the system calculates are most likely to match the search query. For example, Google is a stochastic search system.
Young adults	Teenagers