About the Libraries -> Library Committees -> Web Development Team -> Glossary of Selected Web Terms

Glossary of Selected Web Terms

ASCII: Upper-case. Acronym for the American Standard Code for Information Interchange. Pronounced ask-ee, ASCII is a code for representing English characters as numbers, with each letter assigned a number from 0 to 127.

Binary: Pertaining to a number system that has just two unique digits. Computers use the digits 0 and 1. Unique combinations of 0 and 1 represent characters.

BISON: Upper-case. The University of Manitoba Libraries' online public access catalogue.

Browser: A short form for Web browser, a software application used to locate and display Web pages.

The catalogue: See BISON.

Contact person: The person responsible for answering questions related to a specified web page.

Database: A collection of information organized in such a way that a computer program can quickly select desired pieces of data. You can think of a database as an electronic filing system.

Document delivery: See Interlibrary loan.

Domain: A group of computers and devices on a network that are administered as a unit with common rules and procedures. An example is the address www.umanitoba.ca ("ca" is the domain of Canada, "umanitoba" is the University of Manitoba domain, and "www" is the World Wide Web server at the UM domain).

DOS: Upper-case. The short form for Disk Operating System. The term DOS can refer to any operating system, but it is most often used as a shorthand for MS-DOS (Microsoft disk operating system). Operating systems provide a software platform on top of which other programs, called application programs (such as WordPerfect and Microsoft Word), can run.

Download: To transfer data from a remote source (i.e. a web site or network server) to one's own computer.

DRA: Upper-case. Short form for Data Research Associates. Suppliers of the Libraries online catalogue.

E-mail: Hyphenated. Short for electronic mail, the transmission of messages over communications networks.

FAQ: Upper-case. Acronym for Frequently Asked Questions. Each letter is pronounced individually.

FTP: Upper-case. A short form for File Transfer Protocol. A very common method of moving files between two computers.

GIF: Upper-case. A short form for Graphic Interchange Format. A common format for image files, especially suitable for images containing large areas of the same color.

Home page: Two words. The main page of a Web site. Typically, the home page serves as an index or table of contents to other documents stored at the site.

HTML: Upper-case. The short form for HyperText Markup Language. The authoring language used to create documents on the World Wide Web.

HTTP: Upper-case. A short form for HyperText Transfer Protocol, the underlying protocol used by the World Wide Web. HTTP defines how messages are formatted and transmitted, and what actions Web servers and browsers should take in response to various commands.

Hypertext: A special type of database system, invented by Ted Nelson in the 1960s, in which objects (text, pictures, music, programs, and so on) can be creatively linked to each other.

IE: Upper-case. Acronym for Internet Explorer.

ILL: Upper-case. A short form for InterLibrary Loan.

Information provider: UMinfo's term for the author of a web page.

Internet: The short form, the Net, is also upper case (McFarlane, p.166). A large network of computers connected to a backbone network. The Internet spans a variety of protocols and many different physical networks around the world.

Internet Explorer: Microsoft's Web browser.

Interlibrary loan: Often called ILL (interlibrary loan). If there is a book or periodical article you need, and it is not available at University of Manitoba Libraries, the Document Delivery service may be able to obtain it for you from other libraries. There is a small fee for this service.

Interunit loan: There are two University of Manitoba campuses -- Fort Garry and Bannatyne. If you wish to borrow material from a library on another campus you may fill out an interunit loan form to have the material sent to a library on your campus.

IP address: Upper-case, pronounced as two separate letters. Abbreviation of Internet Protocol. It is like the postal service in that an IP address is an address for a computer.

Journal: See Periodical.

JPEG: Upper-case. A short form for Joint Photographic Experts Group. A format for image files.

LETS: Upper-case. A short form for Libraries Electronic Technologies and Services. A unit within the UML responsible for the Libraries automated systems and technology.

Libraries: University of Manitoba Libraries. This term is considered a singular entity encompassing all libraries at the University of Manitoba and affiliated institutions.

Link: A reference to another document. Such links are sometimes called hot links because they take you to other document when you click on them.

LISTSERV: Upper-case. An automatic list of e-mail addresses identified by a single name, such as mail-list@sandybay.com. When e-mail is addressed to a LISTSERV mailing list, it is automatically broadcast to everyone on the list. The result is similar to a newsgroup, except that the messages are transmitted as e-mail and are therefore available only to individuals on the list (subscribed).

Microsoft Windows: A family of operating systems that uses graphics to run programs.

Mouse: A device that controls the movement of the cursor or pointer on a display screen.

Net: Upper-case when used as a short form of the Internet.

NETDOC: All upper-case. Acronym for Networked Databases On Campus. A large collection of bibliographic, statistical, and full-text databases, provided by the Libraries in co-operation with Information Services and Technology, the Faculties, and the local area network administrators. The different access methods for NetDOC are Web, Windows, Mac, and UNIX.

Netiquette: The etiquette on the Internet.

Netscape (Navigator): Netscape Communications Corporation’s Web browser.

Network: Any time you connect two or more computers together so that they can share resources, you have a computer network.

Newsgroups: An online discussion group, usually devoted to a topic. To view and post messages to a newsgroup, you need a news reader, a program that runs on your computer and connects you to a news server on the Internet.

The online catalogue: See BISON.

PDF: Upper-case. A short form for Portable Document Format, a file format developed by Adobe Systems. PDF captures formatting information from a variety of desktop publishing applications, making it possible to send formatted documents and have them appear on the recipient's monitor or printer as they were intended. To view a file in PDF format, you need Adobe Acrobat Reader, a free application distributed by Adobe Systems.

Periodical: An item which is published on a regular basis (once a week or 12 times a year for example), usually with the same title, such as magazines (popular periodicals), newspapers, and journals (scholarly periodicals). Periodicals are often referred to as serials.

Plug-in: Hyphenated. A (usually small) piece of software that adds features to a larger piece of software. An example would be the Adobe Acrobat viewer, which allows you to read fulltext articles on the web, and plugs into Netscape.

Protocols: A common set of rules and signals that computers on the network use to communicate.

Search engine: Two words. A program that searches documents for specified keywords and returns a list of the documents where the keywords were found. Although search engine is really a general class of programs, the term is often used to specifically describe systems like Alta Vista and Excite that enable users to search for documents on the World Wide Web and USENET newsgroups.

Serial: See Periodical.

Telnet: A program that allows you to connect your computer to a server on the network. You can then enter commands through the Telnet program and they will be executed as if you were entering them directly on the server console.

UM: Upper-case. The short form for the University of Manitoba.

UMinfo: Upper-case UM, lower-case and italicized info. University of Manitoba Web site home page. Also used to denote the group which maintains the Web site.

UofM: Use UM.

UML: Upper-case. Preferred acronym for the University of Manitoba Libraries.

UNIX: Pronounced yoo-niks, a popular multi-user, multitasking operating system developed at Bell Labs in the early 1970s.

URL: Upper-case. The short form for Uniform Resource Locator.

Web: Upper-case W. The short form for the World Wide Web. (McFarlane, p.406)

Web developer: The UML staff member in charge of the Libraries' web site development.

Web page: Two words. A document on the World Wide Web. Every web page is identified by a unique URL.

Web site: Two words. A site (location) on the World Wide Web. Each Web site contains a home page. A particular web site is identified by the host name part of a URL.

Windows: Upper-case W. A short form for Microsoft Windows.

World Wide Web: The short form, the Web, is also upper case (McFarlane, p.415). A system of Internet servers that support specially formatted documents. The documents are formatted in a language called HTML (HyperText Markup Language) that supports links to other documents, as well as graphics, audio, and video files. This means you can jump from one document to another simply by clicking on hot spots. Not all Internet servers are part of the World Wide Web.

WWW: Upper-case. Acronym for the World Wide Web. In most cases "Web" is preferred.

Bibliography

Gateway Online Glossary [Online]. Gateway 2000 Inc. Available: http://www.gw2k.com/support/glossary/index.html [1999, May 7].

Gregg, Mora. A glossary of library terms. Winnipeg, MB: University of Manitoba Libraries. Available: http://www.umanitoba.ca/libraries/reference/help/glossary.shtml [1998, August 20].

McFarlane, J.A., and Warren Clements. 1998. The Globe and Mail style book: A guide to language and usage. Toronto, ON: McClelland & Stewart Inc.

PC Webopaedia. internet.com [Online]. Available: http://webopedia.internet.com/ [1999, May 7-10].