Glossary of Key Terms and Acronyms
This brief glossary includes only key terms used in this report. For more comprehensive assistance with current information technology jargon readers should consult either an online or print dictionary. The useful free On-line Dictionary of Computing can be found at http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk and arrangements have been made to host the Australian mirror site on the Netspot server at http://www.netspot.unisa.edu.au. Many other suitable online resources exist. Most print Internet beginners guides contain glossaries.
| ABN | Australian Bibliographic Network, library cooperative cataloguing database. |
| Account | A space set aside for users of a particular host computer. Account holders are assigned a login and password which they must use upon connecting to verify that they are valid users of the system. |
| Archie | A system to automatically, gather, index and serve information on the Internet, initially provided an indexed directory of filenames from all anonymous FTP archives. |
| Austrom | A collection of Australian bibliographic databases presented on CD-ROM. |
| Client | A program running on a computer that requests services from another program, often called a ‘server’, which usually runs on a remote computer. |
| Dialog | A commercial online service which provides access to a large number of bibliographic and full text databases. |
| Document like objects | Anything of a range of formats and media; graphics, web pages, lists, email, news posting; that has information content. |
| Dublin Core | An initially agreed set of 13 elements of meta data that should be present in the cataloging of electronic information, also the cross-sector conference that was held to discuss indexing and description of electronic resources for successful retrieval. |
| FIGIT | Follett Implementation Group on Information Technology. |
| FTP | File transfer protocol, method by which files are transferred between remote machines. |
| Gateway | A computer that connects two networks, often converting protocols or messages from one network to another. |
| GILS | Global Information Locator Service, also Government Information Locator Service which governs the organisation of United States government information. |
| Gopher | A distributed information service that makes available hierarchical collections of information across the Internet, users navigate through hierarchical menus. |
| GUI | Graphical User Interface. |
| HTML | HyperText Markup Language—a document tagging description used for World-Wide Web documents. |
| HTTP | Hyper Text Transfer Protocol—the client/server protocol upon which the World Wide Web is based. |
| IP address | A specially formulated number assigned to every computer directly connected to the Internet (e.g. 192.35.222.222). |
| Interface | Software determining the appearance of information on the screen and how the user may interact with and manipulate that information. |
| Jughead | A software program used in conjunction with Gopher to provide the ability to search all of the menu selections within a particular Gopher server. |
| LAN | Local Area Network. |
| Marc 856 | US Marc field designated to contain information as to the location of electronic information resources, MARC is an international library cataloguing standard. |
| Metadata | Data about data—information such as author, title, subject headings. |
| NIRS | Networked Information Resources—essentially the wide range of Internet or networked electronic resources which may exist in a range of formats. |
| NSA/ARPA/NASA | National Science Foundation(NSF), Department of Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), joint initiators of US digital libraries program. |
| OPAC | Online Public Access Catalogue—an automated library catalogue. |
| Ozline | A collection of primarily Australian bibliographic databases. |
| Protocol | Specific rules defining one part of the transmission and receipt of information across a data communications link. |
| Server | A program (or generically, a computer) that provides services, such as files or access to a database when requested by a (usually remote) ‘client’ process. |
| TEI | Text Encoding Initiative, another project to develop a standard for meta-data. |
| Telnet | Internet protocol providing connection (remote login) to a remote computer. |
| URL | Uniform Resource Locator—provides the location of a file on the Internet. |
| Viewers | Software applications which allow users to play or open files of specific formats, such as images and sounds. |
| Veronica | A gopher service that provides keyword searching of gopher menu items. |
| WAIS | Wide Area Information Servers—a distributed information service which offers simple, natural language input, indexed searching and a relevance feedback mechanism. |
| WWW | World Wide Web—client-server software that provides a user-friendly interface to text, graphics, moving images, sounds and other types of information available from Web servers worldwide to computers directly connected to the Internet. |
| Z39.50 | A protocol that provides for the exchange of information such as full-text or catalog records, between dissimilar computer systems. |
Sources:
Crumlish, C. 1995, The internet dictionary: the essential guide to Netspeak, San Francisco, Sybex.
Deeson, E. 1991, Collins dictionary of information technology, Glasgow, Harper Collins.
Ebbs, G. & Horey, J. 1995, The Australian internet book: your information highway toolkit, Sydney, WoodsLane Press.