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Library Terms Glossary

- B -

Bias - Personal beliefs, opinions, or attitudes that prevent impartial consideration about a particular topic. 
See also: Objectivity

Bibliography - A list of books, articles, or other sources (interviews, films) on a particular subject. Bibliographiesmay be found at the end of books or articles, or may be separate publications.

Bibliographic citation - Information that identifies a book or journal article. Information for a book usually includes the author, title, publisher, and date. The citation for an article includes the author, title of the article, title of the periodical, volume, pages, and date. Some databases contain only citations to books and articles.

Boolean logic - Use of operators AND, OR, NOT to combine search terms. (see KEYWORDS/KEYWORD SEARCHING).

  • AND means that both words you type must be included in search, such as "T-SHIRT and JEANS"
  • OR means that either one word, or the other word, or both words can be included. " JEANS or SKIRT"
  • Not means to exclude a word from your search, "JEANS not BLUE JEANS".

 

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