Home → Circulation in Evergreen → Useful Resources → Glossary of Common Terminology for Evergreen and NC Cardinal
Last Updated 05/17/2023
AACR2 (Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules, Second Edition): AACR2 is a set of cataloging rules for descriptive cataloging of various types of resources. http://www.aacr2.org/
Acquisitions: Processes related to ordering materials and managing expenditures.
Age-hold protection: Allows libraries to prevent holds on newly cataloged materials (on an item-by-item basis) from outside the owning library's branch or system for a designated amount of time.
Authority record: Records used to codify and control the contents of MARC fields.
Balance stop percent: A setting in acquisitions that prevents staff from making purchases when only a specified percentage of the fund remains.
Barcode: The code/number attached to an item or patron record. This is not the database ID. Barcodes are added to items to facilitate the checking in and out of an item. Barcodes can be changed as needed. Physical barcodes that can be placed on items can follow several different barcode symbologies.
Bibliographic record: The record that contains MARC data about a work, such as title, author, and copyright date.
Billing types: Various categories of system-generated and staff-applied billing.
Booking: Processes relating to reserving cataloged and non-bibliographic items.
Buckets: This is a container of items. See also Record Buckets and Item Buckets.
Call number: A brief string of letters and or numbers used to provide identifying information about an item.
Call number record (sometimes also called volume record): One or more item records may be attached to a call number record.
Catalog: The database of titles and objects
Cataloging: The process of adding materials to be circulated to the system.
Check-in: The process of returning an item.
Check-out: The process of loaning an item to a patron.
Circulation: The process of loaning an item to an individual.
Circulating library: The library which has checked out the item.
Circulation library: The library which is the home of the item.
Circulation limit sets: Refines circulation policies by limiting the number of items that users can check out.
Circulation modifiers: Circulation modifiers pull together Loan Duration, Renewal Limit, Fine Level, Max Fine, and Profile Permission Group to create circulation rules for different types of materials. Circulation Modifiers are also used to determine Hold Policies.
Claims Returned: A fine stop reason in Evergreen, not an item status. The item status of the item that the patron claimed to return is still Checked out, which means it is still OPAC visible and holdable, and will remain on the patron account (not accruing fines or changing to Lost status) until the item is Checked in.
Closed Dates Editor: Used to specify dates within a library’s normal hours of operation in which the library is closed for a special reason. Ex: Holidays, staff workdays.
Community: In the open-source world of software development, community refers to the users and developers who communicate and collaborate to develop and enhance software.
Consortium: A consortium is an organization of two or more individuals, companies, libraries, consortiums, etc. formed to undertake an enterprise beyond the resources of any one member.
Consortial Library System (CLS): An ILS designed to run a consortium. A CLS is designed for resource sharing between all members of the consortium, it provides a union catalog for all items in the consortium.
Copy: see Item
Default search library: The default search library setting determines what library is searched from the advanced search screen and portal page by default. Manual selection of a search library will override it.
Distribution formulas: Used to specify the number of copies that should be distributed to specific branches and item locations in Acquisitions.
Due date: The date on or before which an item must be returned to the library (usually to avoid being charged an overdue fine).
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI): Transmission of data between organizations using electronic means. Used for Acquisitions.
Evergreen: Evergreen is an open-source ILS designed to handle the processing of a geographically dispersed, resource sharing library network.
FIFO (First In First Out): In a FIFO environment, holds are filled in the order that they are placed.
Fund tags: Tags used in acquisitions to allow you to group Funds.
Funding sources: Sources of the monies to fund acquisitions of materials.
Funds: Allocations of money used for purchases.
FRBR (Functional Requirements for Bibliographic Records): See https://www.loc.gov/cds/downloads/FRBR.PDF [Library of Congress FRBR documentation]
Hatch: A additional program that is installed as an extension of your browser to extend printing functionality with Evergreen.
Hold: The exclusive right for a patron to checkout a specific item.
Hold boundaries: Define which organizational units are available to fill specific holds.
Holdings Import Profile: Identifies the Import Item Attributes definition.
Holding subfield: Used in the acquisitions module to map subfields to the appropriate item data.
ILS (Integrated Library System): The Integrated Library System is a set of applications which perform the business and technical aspects of library management, including but not exclusive to acquisitions, cataloging, circulation, and booking.
ILL (Inter-Library Loan): Inter-Library Loan is the process of one library borrowing materials for a patron from another library (outside the shared consortium).
Import item attributes: Used to map the data in your holdings tag to fields in the item record during a MARC import.
Insufficient quality fall-through profile: A back-up merge profile to be used for importing if an incoming record does not meet the standards of the minimum quality ratio.
ISBN (International Standard Book Number): A publisher product number that has been used in the book supply industry since 1968. A published book that is a separate product gets its own ISBN. ISBNs are either 10 digits or 13 digits long. They may contain information on the country of publication, the publisher, title, volume, or edition of a title.
ISSN (International Standard Serial Number): A unique 8-digit number assigned by the International Serials Data System to identify a specific serial title.
Item: The actual item.
Item barcode: A unique identification number for each item in the catalog.
Item buckets: A contained list of item records upon which actions may be performed in batch.
Item Status: A core Evergreen feature that provides a great deal of information about a barcoded item linked to both the title record and recent patron activity involving the item.
Juvenile flag: A setting used to specify whether a user is a juvenile for circulation purposes.
KPAC (Kids' OPAC): Alternate, simplified version of the OPAC that is child-friendly.
LaunchPad: LaunchPad is an open source suite of tools that help people and teams to work together on software projects. LaunchPad brings together bug reports, wishlist ideas, translations, and blueprints for future development of Evergreen. https://launchpad.net/evergreen
LCCN (Library of Congress Control Number): A system of numbering catalog records at the Library of Congress.
Loan duration (loan period): The length of time a given type of material can circulate.
MARC (Machine Readable Cataloging): Standards for the representation and communication of bibliographic and related information in machine-readable form.
MARC batch export: A process of mass exporting copies of MARC records from Evergreen.
MARC batch import: A process of mass importing MARC records into Evergreen.
Match score: Indicates the relative importance of specified match points as Evergreen compares an incoming record to an existing record.
Metarecord: Compilation of individual bibliographic records that represent the same work (possibly in different formats). This compilation allows for several records to be represented on a single line on the search results page and allows the broadest number of potential copies to fill a patron hold for the first available copy of selected formats.
Minimum quality ratio: Used to set the acceptable level of quality for a record to be imported.
Monograph parts: A means of providing additional granularity within bibliographic records, primarily to enable patrons to place holds on individual parts of a set of differing items encompassed by the same published title.
NC Cardinal: A consortium of North Carolina libraries that share a single Evergreen catalog and transit materials between member libraries to fulfill patron hold requests.
Non-cataloged: Items that are not cataloged within Evergreen.
Non-cataloged Types Editor: A means of defining circulation rules for non-cataloged items.
OPAC (Online Public Access Catalog): An online interface to the database of a library's holdings, used to find resources in their collections. It is possibly searchable by keyword, title, author, subject or call number. The public side of the catalog.
Organizational units (Org Unit): Organizational Units are the specific instances of the organization unit types that make up your library's hierarchy. They should be the proper names for libraries and will be visible to patrons in the OPAC. Ex: Main Street Branch, Townsville Campus
Organization unit type: The organization types in the hierarchy of a library system.
Overlay/merge profiles: During a MARC import this is used to identify which fields should be replaced, which should be preserved, and which should be added to the record.
Owning library: The library branch to which an item’s call number record is attached (usually the purchasing library).
Parent organizational unit: An organizational unit one level higher in the hierarchy; policies may be inherited by its child units.
Parts: see Monograph Parts
Patron: A user of the ILS. Patrons in Evergreen can include both library staff and public users.
Patron barcode/account/library card number: A unique identification number assigned to each patron used to label and retrieve their library account.
Permission groups: A grouping of permissions granted to a group of individuals, i.e. patrons, cataloging, circulation, administration. Permission Groups also set the depth and grantability of permissions.
Pickup library: Library designated as the location where requested material is to be picked up.
Preferred Library: The library that is used to show items and URIs regardless of the library searched. It is recommended to set this to your Workstation library so that local copies always show up first in search results.
Print templates: Templates that Evergreen uses to print various receipts and tables.
Printer settings: Settings in Evergreen for selected printers which may utilize HATCH functionality.
Propagate funds: Create a new fund for the following fiscal year with the same parameters as the current fund.
Providers: Vendors from whom a library orders materials. Set in the Acquisition module.
Purchase Order (PO): A document issued by a buyer to a vendor, indicating types, quantities, and prices of materials.
Quality metrics: A mechanism for Evergreen to measure the quality of records and to make importing decisions based on quality.
RDA (Resource Description & Access): A set of cataloging standards and guidelines based on FRBR and FRAD. RDA is the successor for AACR2. http://rdatoolkit.org/
Record bucket: A contained list of bibliographic records upon which actions may be performed in batch.
Record match sets: When importing records, this identifies how Evergreen should match incoming records to existing records in the system.
Recurring fine: The term for daily or other regularly accruing overdue fines.
Register Patron: The process of creating a new patron account within Evergreen.
Rollover: Used to roll over remaining encumbrances and funds into the same fund the following year.
SAN (Standard Address Number): An identification code for electronic communication within the publishing industry.
Shelving location: The area within the library where a given item is shelved.
SIP (Standard Interchange Protocol): A communications protocol used within Evergreen for transferring data to and from third-party devices, such as RFID and barcode scanners that handle patron and library material information. Version 2.0 (also known as "SIP2") is the current standard.
Staff client: The graphical user interface used by library workers to interact with the Evergreen system. Staff use the staff client to access administration, acquisitions, circulation, and cataloging functions.
Standing penalties: Serve as limiters when patron activity meets certain criteria, commonly a specified amount of overdue items or fines. Standing penalty blocks will prevent circulation and hold transactions.
Statistical categories (stat cats): Used to label select patrons and holdings for record-keeping purposes.
Transit: The movement of items between libraries, usually to fulfill patron hold requests.
URI (Universal Resource Identifier): A string of characters that identify a logical or physical resource. Examples are URL and URN.
URL (Universal Resource Locator): The web address used to access a resource.
URN (Universal Resource Number): A standard number to identify a resource. Examples of URNs are ISBN, ISSN, and UPC.
UPC (Universal Product Code): A unique barcoded number assigned to an item by the manufacturer.
Wiki: The Evergreen Wiki can be found at https://wiki.evergreen-ils.org and is a knowledge base of information about Evergreen.
Workstation: The unique name associated with a specific computer and library branch.
Z39.50: An international standard client/server protocol for communication between computer systems, primarily library and information related systems.