Building and Using the Universal Library

Glossary

Version 0.1 (updated January 10, 2000)

Abstract
Anonymizer n: an Internet service that strips all identifying information from a user's Internet transactions, allowing anonymous e-mailing, Web browsing, and newsgroup posting. (2)
Archive
Access point
Access system
Browsing
Catalog
Cellular Repository: An information repository with a layered architecture. Each layer may be implemented by a multitude of modules (cells), which are designed to work together. (1)
Censorship
Collaborative filtering n: an automated process of recommending data to a user based on the recommendations of other users who have demonstrated similar preferences, judgements, etc.; collaborative filtering systems have been used to provide communities of users with recommendations for books, music, movies, Web pages, newsgroup postings, and other Internet content. (2)
Community Information Systems
Community Network
Cookie n: an encoded file placed by a Web server on an Internet user's computer; the cookie may contain visitation statistic (number of visits, time, and date), personal information supplied by the user (name, address, password, credit card number, preferences), or other information; vt to place a cookie on a user's computer; to covertly track someone using a digital signifier. (2)
CORBA: Common Object Request Broker Architecture. CORBA is defined and managed by the OMG (Object Management Group). (1)
COS: Common Object Services (a CORBA term) (1)
Classification
Crawler
Crawling
Digital Information
Digital Library
Digital Library Initiative (NSF)
Dublin Core
Encryption, n: the process of converting data into unreadable code; encrypted data requires a cipher key to be retranslated back to a readable format; unencrypted data is called plain or clear text. (2)
Facet: When dividing subjects into distinct characteristic, each distinct characteristic is a facet Literature, for example, can be divided according to language, form, and period..
Federated Information Sources: Information sources which are used together, but which are not under a single authority. Federated information sources are therefore not necessarily willing or equipped to participate in common communication protocols, such as transaction support. (1)
GLOSS: GLOSS is a system developed at Stanford University that helps you find data sources that are relevant to your queries. (1)
Gopher
HCI: Human Computer Interaction. Also known as CHI, as in 'the CHI Conference'. (1)
HTML: Hypertext Markup Language. An SGML-based text markup language used on the WWW (World Wide Web). (1)
IETF: Internet Engineering Task Force - an all volunteer organization responsible for publishing RFCs and Internet Standards. www.ietf.org (1)
IIPA: International Intellectual Property Alliance. (1)
IITA: Information Infrastructure Technology and Applications (1)
IITF: Information Infrastructure Task Force See iitf.doc.gov. (1)
ILU: Inter language Unification - a mechanism for implementing distributed objects across heterogeneous languages. An almost CORBA compliant ORB. Freely available from ftp://ftp.parc.xerox.com/pub/ilu/ilu.html (1)
IR: 1. Information Retrieval (1)
Indexing
Information
Information Retrieval
Information Science
Internet
JAVA: Java is a simple, object-oriented, distributed, interpreted, robust, secure, architecture-neutral, portable, high-performance, multithreaded, dynamic, buzzword- compliant, general-purpose programming language. See java.sun.com (1)
Keywords
Library of Congress
Library of Congress Indexing
LIRA: Learning Information Retrieval Agent (1)
Listserv
MARC
Media
Metadata
Metatags
Navigation
NII: National Information Infrastructue. This may or may not be the Internet, depending on who you ask. See nii.nist.gov.
NTIA: National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Responsible for the Information Superhighway. See www.ntia.doc.gov. (1)
OO: Object Oriented. Objects are opaque datastructures that contain their own state and methods for manipulating that state. (1)
OPAC: On-line Public Access Catalog (?)
ORB: Object Request Broker (another CORBA word). The ORB intercepts requests for a remote object and dispatches it across the net, and returns the eventual result. ORBs hide the network from CORBA objects. (1)
OMG: Object Management Group http://www.omg.org/ (1)
Python: An interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language that is simple and powerful. It has modules, classes, exceptions, very high level dynamic data types, and dynamic typing. http://www.python.org/ (1)
On-Line Publc Access Catalog (OPAC)
Public access
PURL, n: Permanent URL.
RFC: Request for Comment. The Internet's way of declaring a standard. Read RFC1000 for a history of the RFCs and the Internet. See the RFC index for more RFCs. RFCs are published through the IETF by working groups. (1)
Query String, n: a line of encoded text, concatenated to the end of a Web address, that delivers a specialized command to the Web server; a query string can also provide the server with information that the user has inputted into Web page forms as well as information about previous Web pages and sites the user has visited.
Robot
Robot exclusion protocol
SCAM: Stanford Copy Analysis Mechanism (1)
SDI: Selective Dissemination of Information (1)
Search Engine, n: an online database of records containing Web page addresses, titles, and content summaries; information in a search engine is either submitted by Web page authors or gathered directly from the Web using automated search programs (see robots and web crawlers. (2)
Searching
Spider: A program that traverses the Web from link to link, identifying and reading pages.
SGML: Standard Generalized Markup Language. (1)
SIDL: Stanford Integrated Digital Library. Project information can be found at http://www- diglib.stanford.edu (1)
SIFT: Stanford Information Filtering Tool (1)
Stichometry: A calculation of the number of lines (or stichoi) of text in papyrus (and other) textual artifacts that was used to ensure that the original text had not been altered. (cf. checksum in computer systems.)
SOAPs: Seal of Approval - a quantifier of some sort. (1)
TCL/TK: Tool Command Language and its graphical ToolKit, Pronounced tickle tee-kay. (1)
terabyte, n: a unit of measurement for data storage (1 terabyte = 1024 gigabytes = 1,048,576 megabytes) roughly equivalent to 38 miles of file cabinets full of information. (2)
Thesauri
URC: Uniform Resource Characteristic; Uniform Resource Citation - a collection of attribute/values about an object. Some of the values may be URLs. URCs are not formally defined, yet. (1)
URI: Universal Resource Identifier - an address of some sort. IETF URL-WG and the W3.org (1)
URL: Uniform Resource Locator. URLs are a particular kind of URI. (1)
URN: Uniform Resource Name. URNs are another kind of URI. Names are more persistent than Locations. A location may change, but a name rarely will. (1)
Universal access
WAIS: Wide Area Information System
Z39.50: an American National Standards Institute information retrieval standard. Z39.50 is a network protocol: a set of rules governing the formats and procedures used by two computers to interact with one another. The protocol is session-oriented and stateful, in contrast to other well-known Internet protocols such as HTTP (used by the World-Wide Web) and Gopher. Z39.50 is International standard for network information search and retrieval. Allows the user to access remote database records by specifying criteria to identify appropriate records, and then requesting the transmission of some or all of the identified records. (Z39.50 in a Nutshell) Also see Library of Congress WWW/Z39.50 Gateway.

(1) From Stanford digital library glossary
(2) From Harper's Magazine, January 2000 (from either WorldWide Language Insitute [www.wwli.com]; Webopedia Online Computer Dictionary [www.pcwebopedia.com]; Stephen Jenkins [homepage.enterprise.net/jenko/glossary/G.html]; U.S. Patent Office.)