Research libraries and scholarly research tends to include a lot of specialized language. This short glossary is intended to help students, new researchers, and scholars who speak a first language other than English understand some common jargon.
Academic Database: An academic database (or academic research database or research database) provides access to peer-reviewed and scholarly articles from academic journals and other sources of information. JSTOR is an example of an academic database.
Academic Journal: Academic journals are dedicated to specific fields or disciplines of study. Academic journals are usually published a few times a year and contain peer-reviewed research articles within the aim and scope of the journal.
Citation Generator: A citation generator is a digital tool which creates formatted citations according to various style guides, such as APA, MLA, Chicago, or others.
Database: Database is an organized collection of information. In libraries, "databases" is often used as shorthand for academic databases, but databases can also include images, artwork, video or digital archives.
Digital Archive: A digital archive serves much the same purpose as a traditional, physical archive, except the historical documents or artefacts have been scanned or photographed so that they can be accessed online.
LibGuides: LibGuides is a popular platform for creating websites and research guides that is used by many university and research libraries.
Library Catalog: A library catalog, also sometimes an Online Public Access Catalog or OPAC, is a searchable register of materials found in a library or group of libraries
Peer-Review: Peer-review is a process for scholarly publication which requires that an article is thoroughly reviewed by experts in the field before publication.
Primary Source: A primary source is an original document or artifact from a period of history being studied, such as a letter, a diary, newspaper or magazine articles, or legal documents.
Reference Work: Also called reference books or simply reference, are information sources which provides information that can be found quickly when needed. Reference works are usually referred to for particular pieces of information, rather than read beginning to end, such as an encyclopedia or dictionary.
Reference Manager: A reference manager is a type of software or app that helps researchers organize their sources and create citations and bibliographies.
Research Guides: In the context of the ACMS library website, a research guide is a curated research starter that includes relevant links to subject databases, journals, books, and background information.