Library home pages

[JQ Johnson]

> Library jargon can be very frustrating to non-librarians

I think most major library web sites have a FAQ of some sort prominently
accessible from the library's public top-level pages.  If you don't, you
should.  Natural items to add to that FAQ are definitions for library
jargon that you've decided you need to use but that your patrons may not
understand.

By the way, there's a neat free extension for MSIE that lets you
doubleclick a word anywhere on a web page, then choose "MagicDictionary"
from the right-click contextual menu; it looks up the word in the online
Merriam-Webster dictionary.  That dictionary definition of "catalog" does
not include anything that would assist a patron in understanding the
specialized meaning that librarians usually give to the word (or the
notion of local "holdings" that is implicit in the librarian's
definition):
1 : LIST, REGISTER
2 a : a complete enumeration of items arranged systematically with
descriptive details b : a pamphlet or book that contains such a list c :
material in such a list

JQ Johnson                      Office: 115F Knight Library
Academic Education Coordinator  mailto:jqj at darkwing.uoregon.edu
1299 University of Oregon       phone: 1-541-346-1746; -3485 fax
Eugene, OR  97403-1299          http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~jqj/