North Hall Library: First Year Seminar: Welcome to MU &amp; North Hall!

Tour of the Library

Dictionary of Library Jargon

As you use the library, you might run into some of these terms. Here's what they mean:

Word	Definition	Why use this?
Abstract	A short summary of an article	Helps you understand what the article is about without having to skim the whole thing Helps you eliminate articles that aren’t relevant to your research
Call number	The number on the side (or "spine") of the book that helps librarians organize books on the shelves	This is how you find books on the shelves – they’re organized by Library of Congress call numbers
Database	An online resource where you find journal articles, newspaper articles, magazine articles, and more.	These can help you find articles and other online resources for your research
Journal	A collection of articles generally written by scholars or experts in their fields	These are where you find articles, whether they’re online journals or print journals. These articles tend to be narrow in scope
Magazine	A collection of articles generally written by staff or freelance writers and aimed at the general public	These are often considered to be “popular” and not “scholarly”
Peer Reviewed	A piece of writing that has been reviewed by other experts in the field who have approved it for publication	This is what professors usually mean when they want you to use “scholarly” sources
Periodical	A publication which is issued periodically, such as a magazine, journal or newspaper	These are great resources to get you started on your research. Make sure you read your assignment to see what types of sources are acceptable for your professor (if there are restrictions)
Permalink	A link that will always take you back to the article you’ve found	Make sure that you look for these. In library databases, the URL at the top of the webpage tends to change, so a permalink may be the only way to get back to the article you found if you didn’t save a PDF copy
Popular	Works that are published by staff or freelance writers who do not have to have their work peer reviewed before publication	These can be useful for community perspectives or popular opinion as examples in a paper, though they should be supported by more scholarly evidence
Refereed	See “Peer Reviewed”
Scholarly	Works that have gone through a more detailed approval process for publication – usually peer review for articles or through an editor at a University Press	Because they have gone through editors and/or peer review, these tend to be less likely to contain mistakes and are written by experts in the field for others researching in the same field
Stacks	Where the books are located	When you go to the stacks to find a book, you can look around the book to find others that might be useful to your research (known as “shelf reading”)