Libraryland Lexicography
By Karen G. Schneider
American Libraries Columnist
Director of the Garfield Library in Brunswick, New York, and author of A Practical Guide to Internet Filters (Neal-Schuman, 1997)
Column for June/July 1998
Acronym Soup
(Sung to "Three Little Maids from School"
from The Mikado)
By Thomas Dowling
(digital muckety-muck at Ohiolink
and frequent poster to Web4Lib)
Three-letter acronyms can be
Very confusing as you'll see.
Harder than trigonometry—
Three-letter acronyms!
XML is online for free . . .
FTP it from W3C . . .
Use XSL and a DTD . . .
Three-letter acronyms!
Three-letter acronyms are very
Likely to stump your whole library.
Only one thing is still more scary—
Four-letter acronyms!
At one time or another, many of us get very strange pictures in our heads the first time we hear a new word or acronym. The first time I heard the term "Novell"—tossed out casually at a meeting, lo these many years ago—even though I could divine we were discussing networking software, all I could think was "Cuisine?"
I recently tossed out some terms to subscribers to Publib, the online discussion group for public librarians, asking them to concoct some "daffy definitions." Some of the terms, such as "XML," are new; others are the type of acronym you always forget at critical moments (like when a trustee asks, "So what does 'MARC' mean, anyway?"). In many cases, these terms have multiple meanings. For example, some folks insist a true extranet requires password authentication for access, but I've also seen the term used to describe anything on the Internet that's not behind a firewall.
The results needed very little work on my part—just copying, pasting, and laughing! I've added real definitions (the final entry for each term) as well. For some of the definitions I used the PC Webopedia, which I found quickly by drilling down in the ever-wonderful Librarian's Index to the Internet.
Thanks for the hilarious responses go to Richard H. Ressmeyer, Kanawha County Public Library system, Charleston, West Virginia; Jim Curtis, Portage Lake District Library, Houghton, Michigan; Janice Painter, Princeton (N.J.) Public Library; Sara Weissman of the Morris County (N.J.) Public Library; Frances D Smith, San Antonio (Tex.) Public Library; Marion K. Bryant, Blue Grass Regional Library, Columbia, Tennessee; and Mary Lou Caskey, Mid-York Library System, Utica, New York.
Extranet
A. Custom-made information retrieval equipment for catching microfiche when they tumble from storage.
B. The Internet we use when the first one gets too busy.
C. A globally accessible Web site (antonym: intranet).
MARC
A. "Man, Ah neva-shoulda Ripped up them Cards."
B. Machine-Readable Cataloging (Don't you hate acronyms that insert extra letters?).
Network Computer
A. The aberrant computer monitor that will only display NBC, ABC, or CBS—never cable channels.
B. A Network Computer is a thin client with a tiny brain. Okay, I realize that's not clear. It's a dumb terminal with a graphical interface that has enough of a hard drive to store memory while it processes commands. The reason for the small disk space is to take some of the load off the server.
Network Cloud
A. What forms around an ether ring during periods of low pressure. Sitting in one too long may give you XML.
B. Responsible for contributing to the widening of the ozone hole and global warming . . . or is it an El Niño phenomenon?
C. The smoke that rises from the computer after you accidentally type in the command that causes it to explode. (This is the command that the techies tell you doesn't exist but that all non-techies know really does.)
D. Actually, I don't have a very specific definition, except to say it's that special place where your packets go after you wave goodbye to your e-mail from your side of the computer.
Ping
A. The emotion (first felt by Cole Porter) that results when bibliophiles find a signed first edition Willa Cather in your stacks; or the emotion felt by the librarian when the patron returns it.
B. A story about a little duck living on a houseboat in China.
C. The sound a projectile makes when it hits the computer screen.
D. Packet Internet Groper; "a utility to determine whether a specific IP address is accessible" (PC Webopedia).
SGML
A. Super Good Master Librarian.
B. "Sounds good, maybe later."
C. Shoot! Gotta learn another Markup Language!
D. Standard Generalized Markup Language. HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is one type of SGML; XML (defined below) is another.
Thin Client
A. Obviously the opposite of fat binary: Jack Binary could eat no fat, his wife could eat no thin client.
B. The only kind of staff member a computer vendor will take to an expensive restaurant. Fat Clients are taken to a Shoney's buffet.
C. We all know who she is . . . and we hate her. She looks great in all her fine clothes and even though she's thinner, younger and prettier than we are, we have to help her.
D. It's a dumb terminal with a graphical interface. Imagine if your dumb terminals were running graphical interfaces, but were still connected to a server. . . . That's a thin client.
XML
A. Ex-Master Librarian or defrocked book, information, and audiovisual specialist.
B. A terrible skin condition caused by overexposure to cathode ray tubes.
C. Adults-only Web page language.
D. Extensible Markup Language. (Why isn't it EML?) XML will be the next phase of language for Web documents after HTML. Right now it's more theory than reality, but watch for it soon.
Z39.50
A. A little known 1970s sportscar from Datsun.
B. It's the opposite of A-1. It means things cannot get worse.
C. General Motors' sporty-looking entry into the PC market.
D. "A network protocol which specifies rules that allow searching of a range of different databases and retrieval of records, via one user interface." (Courtesy of Rosemary Russell, MODELS Project Manager, U.K. Office for Library and Information Networking.)
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