Glossary
This title has many terms that are repeated throughout the book and so this glossary is intended to help readers keep definitions at their finger tips.
A
- Ajax: Asynchronous JavaScript and XML. Programming language that is comprised of JavaScript and XML that is used for creating dynamic web applications
- API: stands for Application Programming Interface. An API spells out how to formulate a query for the data from a web service
- ATS: The ATS profile defines a basic subset of services for Z39.50 support of public access library catalogs. The ATS requires support for only three search attributes — author, title, and subject (“ATS”) — and mandates support for MARC record data transfer.
B
- badge:: a term used by some services that refers to a snippet of code that pulls data from one site for you to include on another. With Flickr this is a way to add your images to your website and with Yahoo! Pipes it’s a way to add your pipe content to your site.
- bookmarklet: a JavaScript function or set of functions saved to the browser as bookmarks or favorites
- browser-side programming: see client-side programming.
C
- client-side programming: computer programs that are executed client-side, by the web browser. Also known as browser-side programming.
- cloud computing: see internet cloud.
- CMS: Content Management System
- COinS: Context Objects in Spans. Developed as way to incorporate citation information inside HTML pages to send to a user’s OpenURL link resolver without prior knowledge of the user’s institutional affiliation
- CQL: Contextual Query Language. A standard language for representing queries in a human readable format to information retrieval systems such as search engines and library catalogs. CQL was previous known as Common Query Language in past versions of SRU.
- CSE: Google Custom Search Engine
- CSS: Cascading Style Sheets
- CSV: Comma Separated Values. A text file where each value is separated by a comma.
- cURL: stands for Client URL Library. A library of functions that can be used within PHP that allows you to connect and communicate with many types of servers with many types of protocols
D
- DOM: Document Object Model
- Dublin Core: a metadata schema made up of fifteen elements that offer expanded cataloging information that was created out of a cooperative venture involving academic institutions.
E
- eRDF: Embedded RDF. The syntax for writing HTML so that the information in the document can be extracted into RDF
- ETDs: Electronic theses and dissertations
G
- geocoding: takes an address (typically a street address, city name or zip code / postcode) and converts it to map coordinates
- Greasemonky scripts: Work like bookmarklets, but without the clicking. Instead, JavaScript can work its magic on every page by default, without any special action on the users part. To use these scripts a plug-in must be installed into the Firefox browser and then the script enabled.
H
- hAtom: microformat that provides a means to embed the Atom Syndication Protocol into HTML pages
- hCalendar: microformat for sharing calendar data
- hCard: microformat which is based on the Internet standard for contact information, vCard
- hResume: microformat for sharing resume data
- HTML: Hypertext Markup Language. A programming language used to format and display information for human beings to be read as web pages in a web browser.
- HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol
I
- iCal: a file format which allows users to send meeting requests and tasks via email, or by sharing files with an .ics extension
- IFRAME: Inline Frame. Allows a page to set aside a part of itself – a rectangle – and load a separate page within that area. If the “parent” page and the IFRAME page have the same background color, the effect can be seamless.
- Internet cloud: also referred to as cloud computing. Cloud computing refers to computations that take place over the network, usually the Internet. An example of cloud computing would be Google Apps, where all of the editing and storing of data occurs over the Internet.
- IP: Internet Protocol. The protocol that allows for transferring information
between networks.
J
- JSON: JavaScript Object Notation. A text-based, human-readable format use for representing simple data structures and arrays. Many web services make their data available in JSON format.
M
- MARC: MAchine-Readable Cataloging. The standard used by catalogers to represent bibliographic and related information in machine-readable form.
- mashup: a web application that uses content from more than one source to create a single new service displayed in a single graphical interface. The term “mashup” originally comes from pop music, where people seamlessly combine music from one song with the vocal track from another thereby mashing them together to create something new
- metadata: data that describes data
- microformats: abbreviated as µF or uF. A set of simple, open data formats built upon existing and widely adopted standards that allows expression of semantics in HTML (or XHTML)
N
- NISO: National Information Standards Organization. NISO provides information standards that libraries, publishers and developers can use to easily share data and communicate with each other.
O
- OAI-PMH: Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting
- OPAC: Online Public Access Catalog. Common name for a library’s catalog as it is viewed on the web.
- OpenURL: a type of web address used to create web-transportable parcels of metadata about an object. It was designed to support linking from journal databases to library cataloging systems.
P
- percent encoding: also known as URL encoding. A technique used to convert special characters in a URL to a valid format. For example, the space between words in compound terms like “solar energy” should be encoded as %20 (“solar%20energy”)
- PHP: An open source programming language.
- pipes: a term used by the Yahoo! Pipes mashup builder that refers to the linking together of multiple web services or RSS feeds to create a new output.
- plug-in: a snippet of code that can be plugged into an existing application to add additional features and functionality that the original developers maybe didn’t include.
- POSH: Plain Old Semantic HTML
R
- RDF: Resource Description Framework. A means to model information on the web by assigning resources unique identifiers (generally by use of a URI) and describing the relationships between that resource and other resources via a structure known as triples
- RDFa: Resource Description Framework Attributes. The primary defining characteristic of RDFa is the addition of non-standard attributes to HTML tags to help define the RDF triples
- REST: REpresentational State Transfer. The simplest and thus by far the most used protocol in the creation of mashups. A series of principles that explain how resources are defined and addressed.
- RESTafarians: fans of REST
- RSS: Really Simple Syndication. A way of delivering website updates in XML
S
- screen scraper: uses a page’s HTML and CSS tags as hooks to identify the desired information resources to return for processing by some other program
- screen scraping: extracting information intended exclusively for human consumption from the web page and sending it as input to a computer program known as a screen scraper. This method can be used to gather information from sites that do not provide readily available APIs to their data.
- server-side programming: a technology where scripts are run directly on the web server in order to generate dynamic web pages.
- service consumer: makes use of the information or the services provided via a web service
- service provider: an application that makes certain information available or that provides the capability to perform certain operations
- shortcode: is similar to a HTML tag and is used to integrate a plug-in with the generation of a page or post in the WordPress system. When a shortcode is encountered the plug-in associated with that shortcode is activated and the results of the plug-in execution will replace the shortcode in the page or post.
- SOAP: originally stood for Simple Object Access Protocol, a definition that is no longer used. Relies on international standards and protocols and has been adopted primarily in the enterprise world. SOAP uses HTTP as the transport protocol for exchanging information, but it requires that both the requests sent by the service consumer and the answers returned by the service provider be wrapped in an XML envelope
- SOPAC: The Social OPAC. An open source social discovery platform for bibliographic data
- SRU: Search and Retrieve URL Service. An XML-focused search protocol for Internet search queries. SRU is an open standard that has evolved from the popular Z39.50 protocol that has been widely adopted by libraries and supported by software such as citation managers and federated search engines.
- SRW: Search and Retrieve Web Service. Provides a SOAP interface to queries, to augment the URL interface provided by its companion protocol SRU.
T
- TOS: Terms of Service
- triples: maps to the mental picture of a subject, predicate, object phrase, where the subject is the URI of the resource in question, the predicate is an attribute defined in a controlled RDF vocabulary and the object is either another URI (therefore establishing the relationship between two unique resources) or what is called a literal (such as a string or number, which defines the actual value of a property associated with a given resource)
- tweet: send a message via Twitter (www.twitter.com)
U
- UnAPI: a specification to enable cut and paste of metadata on the web
- URI: Uniform Resource Identifier. A string of letters, numbers, and symbols used to identify or name a resource on the Internet. A URL is an example of a URI.
- URL: Uniform Resource Locator. The address of a page on the Internet.
- URL encoding: see percent encoding.
V
- vCard: the Internet standard for contact information commonly seen in peoples’ email signature file, attached with a .vcf extension
W
- web service: a technology that enables information and communication exchange between different applications. Web services are based on a conceptual model that has a service provider, which is an application that makes certain information available or that provides the capability to perform certain operations, and a service consumer, which will make use of the information or the services
- WYSIWYG: What You See Is What You Get. A graphical editor that makes editing web pages easy by removing the need to know HTML
X
- XML: Extensible Markup Language. A markup language for expressing and transporting structured data, and as its name implies, it is extensible in that users can define their own elements.
- XSLT: XML Stylesheet Transformations. Acts as a template for processing the data from one document and reconstituting it into another.
Z
- Z39.50: an established client-server protocol for searching and retrieving information.
