Now that we are approaching fall break, we hope you’ve had a chance to visit your Campus Library, whether online or in person. We are available by phone, email, or in-person and sometimes we can use some unusual terms in our efforts to assist you. When it comes to reference or locating a book, here are some common words you may hear and what they mean.

1. Boolean Search– Using the operators of AND, OR, and NOT  as well as quotation marks (“ ”), parentheses (), and asterisk(*) in keyword searching. These operators help you refine your search results:

a. AND: Narrows your search by including results that contain all the specified keywords.

Example: nutrition AND exercise will return results that include both “nutrition” and “exercise”.

b. OR: Broadens your search to include results that contain any of the specified keywords.

Example: cat OR dog will return results that include either “cat” or “dog” or both.

c. NOT: Excludes results that contain the specified keyword.

Example: apple NOT fruit will return results about Apple Inc. but exclude those about the fruit.

d. Quotation Marks (“ ”): Searches for an exact phrase.

Example: “global warming” will return results that contain the exact phrase “global warming”.

e. Parentheses [()]: Groups terms or operators to control the order of operations.

Example: (education OR training) AND technology will return results that include either “education” OR “training” and must also include “technology”.

f. Asterisk (*): Acts as a wildcard to include variations of a keyword.

Example: develop* will return results that include “develop,” “developer,” “development,” etc.

2. Call Number– This is a combination of letters and numbers that assigns a book’s location on the shelves, kind of like an address. Most academic libraries, IU included, use the Library of Congress’ Classification to assign a book’s call number. The letters in the call number indicate a book’s subject area and the books are arranged alphabetically and then numerically. To find out more, visit the Library of Congress website on Subject Classification. Call numbers are usually located on the spine of the book or the top left corner.

3. IUCat– The IU Libraries online catalog system. Ours can be found right on the Library homepage. Our search box defaults to searching the IU East Library holdings only, but you can opt to search the entire IU library system to see if another IU library has a book that you need.

4. Interlibrary loan (ILL) and Request Delivery– Interlibrary Loan (ILL) books are borrowed from libraries outside the IU system. Request Delivery books are borrowed from other IU campuses. IU East has access to a lot of ebooks, but if you find you need a physical copy of a book, looking at other IU library holdings via IUCat is a good way to find what you need and you can request the book via the “Request This” button in IUCat.

ILL is a good option for when you search the entire IU library system and can’t find the book you need. You can then go to our interlibrary loan system, ILLiad 2.0, located on the Campus Library homepage under “More top library resources, databases, and ebooks,” to request it.

5. Stacks– This term refers to a set of closely arranged shelves for books or other materials. The library stacks are where the main collection of our physical books is located.

6. LibKey Nomad- this is a browser extension that you can use to help you access scholarly articles via the library when you search scholarly websites using Google or another online search engine. This tool can help bypass pay-walls and broken link issues, so we recommend you download Libkey Nomad and try it out. 

When troubleshooting a technical problem, we always start by suggesting you try a different browser or clearing your cookies. Unfortunately, not all of the library subscribed resources are compatible with all browsers. Some of our databases work better in Chrome than Firefox and others in Firefox than Safari or Internet Explorer. Switching to a different browser usually works, however, sometimes the access issue is more complicated and needs to be addressed by the librarians. Here are some of the terms you might here when we explain possible access problems:

7. Cookies/Cache– Cookies are pieces of saved data that live in your browser. This is what allows you to access Facebook or your email on your personal devices quickly without having to login every time because the browser saved your data. If you want to know how to clear this data or your browsing history to resolve performance issues, you can check out the IU Knowledge Base guide on how to do all that.

8. Proxy Server– All of the IU East Campus Library databases are accessible off campus via a proxy. It basically links students and faculty working from their personal laptops, tablets, and phones to the content that the IU East library subscribes to. It’s the reason that when you click on a database from the A-Z Resource List, you may be asked to login to your IU account. Each IU campus has their own unique proxy for accessing content they purchase. Sometimes URLs and proxy addresses change which can interrupt access. If a proxy is not configured right, you may also get an error message. Our proxy must be configured, so attaching our proxy to the front of any link will not work.

9. Permalink– This is a permanent link to an article, ebook, web page, or even a blog entry. Many of our databases like Academic Search Premier and ProQuest Central provide permalinks to their articles. The permalinks provided by our databases, however, also include the proxy for IU East. Since databases often require a subscription, this unique permalink with the IU East proxy allows members of IU East to access the article or ebook directly, without needing to go through the library website or the database it came from. If a professor or student tries to share an article or ebook to other students or peers without the permalink, those they shared it with might not be able to access the content. The symbol for permalink often looks like the icons below.

Whether you stop by in person or visit us online, we are here to help you succeed in your research. If you need any research assistance or have trouble accessing an article or a database, just Ask Us! at iueref@iu.edu.