Library lingo

[Tony Zbaraschuk]

Ranti Junus wrote:
> Does anybody has a program reaching out to faculty, students, or general
> public to understand library lingo.  You know, that OPAC (O-whaat?),
> Indexes (students I talked to think it's only refers to the back of a text
> book), Databases (Computer Science students scratched they heads because
> their understanding is about raw data, not articles), Journal (and they
> think it means "diary")... stuff like that.   Yes, I am aware of the list
> created by  John Kupersmith (http://www.jkup.net/terms.html), but is there
> anybody willing to share how they reach out to the people that probably
> never come to the library, yet use the web site quite frequently?

What I do is listen to what the users ask for when they come to the
reference desk, and then use those terms prominently in the web page.

Nothing beats staying in touch with your audience.


Tony Zbaraschuk