Library Services
| Abstract | A summary of the main points of a longer piece of work. Journal articles often begin with an abstract. |
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| Academic integrity | Academic integrity is fundamental to the values promoted by the University, and assessments are designed so that you are assessed on your knowledge, skills and abilities. It is the commitment to honesty, responsibility and fairness expected from all students by the University. The work you submit must be wholly your own work, with all sources of information fully acknowledged through proper referencing and transparency on the use of AI tools. Failure to uphold academic integrity can lead to academic misconduct. Please see the Cranfield University Academic Misconduct Handbook for details. |
| APA7 | A style of ‘author-date’ referencing used at Cranfield University. For example, a citation may look like this, Smith (2020). See the APA7 referencing guide for details. |
| Bibliographic information | Information details about a resource, such as author, title, date of publication, source. |
| Boolean operator | The operators AND, OR and NOT. These operators are commands used when combining keywords in databases and can help to make your searches more precise. |
| Classmark | Also known as a shelfmark. Each physical library item will have a series of numbers and characters on the spine label known as a classmark, such as 378.1 COT, which mark their exact location on the shelves in the library. When you search Library Search for physical items you will find the ‘shelfmark’. Classmarks relate to a specific topic, so you will find items about the same subjects together on the same shelf, making it easy to browse. If you have trouble finding an item please ask library staff for help. |
| Citation | A reference to an information source (e.g. an article, book or website) that another author refers to in their own work to acknowledge the original source. Citations are located in the text near where the source is used and is linked to a full reference at the end of the work. Citations vary in style with numbered [1], and author-date (Smith, 2023) styles the most common. |
| Conference proceedings | A collection of papers, articles or presentations presented at a conference by researchers in a specific field of study. They often include the latest research not yet formally published in academic journals and may not be peer-reviewed. |
| Database | The library has access to many online databases where you can search for specialist data, information and literature. You can access the databases that the library pays for via the Databases A-Z list. Many of these are not freely available via the web and you may be required to authenticate using OpenAthens to access them. |
| Document supply service | See Interlibrary loan |
| DOI | Digital Object Identifier, a unique and permanent address for an article or document online. A DOI is usually made up of a string of numbers, e.g. 10.1080/13614533.2021.2008995 |
| eResources | Also known as electronic or online resources. Library resources that are accessed via the internet including eBooks, eJournals and databases. |
| Full text | The complete text of a journal article, book or document. Full text allows you to read the whole document, usually in PDF format. Not all items are freely available in full text on the web, but if you use library resources you will get access to more full text items. |
| Issue |
This has two different definitions in the Library:
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| Interlibrary Loan | If you need an item that you can't access in our online or print collections, you can ask us to try to get it for you from another library by using our interlibrary loans service. For details see our Interlibrary loans webpage. |
| Journal articles | Also known as journal papers. Journal articles are brief but detailed pieces of academic writing published in a scholarly or academic journal. They are written by experts and communicate academic research knowledge. Journal articles are usually peer-reviewed and can be searched via the library databases. |
| Keywords | Words or phrases which encapsulate the main idea or concept of a topic and which are used to search databases for relevant information on that topic. |
| Lunch+Learn | Optional library training and workshops held during the lunch period. They include sessions on how to use different library databases, referencing, writing and presenting skills and more. You can see what is available and book sessions from our Research and Academic Skills Development page. |
| Mendeley | Mendeley is a free online reference management tool that helps you to save and organise your references in a ‘library’ of your own. It integrates with MS Word to allow easy citation and referencing. |
| NLM | The numbered referencing style officially used at Cranfield. You can find the library guide on referencing in NLM on our website. |
| Online reading list | See Reading list |
| Online resource | See eResource |
| OpenAthens | The authentication system used for accessing eResources. The process where you are required to use your Cranfield University username and password to confirm your identity before accessing certain resources such as databases that Cranfield pays for. |
| Peer-reviewed | Peer-review is when journal articles have been evaluated by experts in the discipline for quality and accuracy before publication in a journal. Peer-reviewed articles are therefore of high quality and a good source of information for assignments. |
| Plagiarism | The presentation of someone else’s work as though it was your own without acknowledgement - with or without the original author’s consent. Plagiarism is a disciplinary offence. For more information see our Plagiarism webpage. |
| Primary source | Original research or information such as an experimental study published in a journal article or an interview transcript. |
| Reading list | The selection of books, journal articles, documents, websites or other materials which are recommended reading for you by your lecturer for the module you are studying. You can find reading lists in the Canvas pages for your modules. |
| Reference | The full details of an information source which has been referred to (cited) in a piece of work. All references cited should be listed in full at the end of the work. Reference details include things such as author names, date of publication, title of work, and source location. A reference is written to a precise format according to the referencing style you are using. At Cranfield we use APA7 and NLM referencing styles. |
| Reference items | Print books and journals which cannot be borrowed and must be read within the library only. These are indicated by a red sticker on the spine. |
| SCONUL Access | The SCONUL Access scheme allows Cranfield students to access and use other academic libraries within the UK and the Republic of Ireland. The scheme is free, but you must apply via SCONUL prior to visiting another university. For details see ‘Using Other Libraries’ on our website. |
| Secondary source | An information source that synthesises, analyses or interprets information from primary sources. Secondary sources can include reviews, summaries, textbooks and newspaper editorials. |
| UDC | Universal Decimal Classification is the library classification scheme used at Cranfield to provide books with a specific classmark for their topic and indicating their location on the library shelves. |
| URL | Uniform Resource Locator, the address for a web page on the internet, e.g. https://library.cranfield.ac.uk/home |
| Volume | Academic journals are published regularly as single issues. Issues are then grouped together into volumes. |
Have we missed any terms that you don't understand? Please let us know and we'll add them!