Abstract
An abstract is a summary which describes the original work. It may be very brief, or go into some detail. It is not the full text.

Bibliographic or citation database
In its print form, it might be called a bibliographic or citation index. In either case, this type of database or index tells you where--in what source--you can find the whole article or item. It might also contain abstracts. For example, Academic Search Premier (ASP) tells you where to find articles on AIDS, and gives you a sentence or two describing the article. In some cases, it offers you the full text of the article.

Full Text
The whole article from a magazine or newspaper, or from what ever the source is. SIRS and Lexis-Nexis are full text databases.

Hard Copy
A hard copy is an item you can hold in your hand; when you're viewing an article on your
screen, it's an electronic copy. When you print it, you have a hard copy.

Image vs. ASCII copies
An image copy of an article looks like a photocopy. It has all of the charts and graphs, photos, artwork, etc. An ASCII (pronounced "ask-ee") copy is only text, or words. No pictures or graphics.

PDF( Portable Document Format)
It is a means of delivering images of articles to your computer's screen. It requires that you have "reader" software installed on your computer. The most popular reader software is Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0 (Probably the most popular because it's free!). Acrobat Reader is already installed on all the computers in the Library. When you click on a PDF document, Acrobat should automatically launch and open the document. If it doesn't, ask one of the librarians for help. If you need to install Acrobat Reader on your computer at home, you can do so from the Adobe website.

Periodical index
A periodical is a magazine, newspaper or journal. A periodical index tells you in which magazine or newspaper issue you can find an article on a topic. It is much like a bibliographic citation database, but it's usually in print form--paper, not electronic. Sometimes we still refer to citation databases as periodical indexes.

Updated: 15 July 2003