The terms and definitions shown here are as used in the Ulrichsweb Global Serials Directory.

abstracted/indexed: May appear in the Basic Description section. Indicates that abstracts or citations of articles from the serial title are included in publications from secondary publishers (also called "abstracting and indexing services" or "A&I services").

Abstract/Index: A serial type that provides reference or article-summary information (or both) from a number of different publications (sometimes also called current-awareness services). Often abbreviated as "A&I services," these types of resources may be available in print or electronic format and provide pointers to the full text of articles in journals, magazines, and other publications.

Academic/Scholarly: A content type assigned by Ulrich's to describe the primary audience for the publication. The Academic/Scholarly determination is made by a process combining publisher self-reporting about individual titles and independent Ulrich's editorial research.

acronym description: May appear in the Basic Description. Refers to the spelled-out name of a serial that is also known by an acronym.

active: A publication status indicating a title is currently being published.

announced never published: A publication status that indicates plans for a serial were announced, but the title was never published.

bibliography: A content type assigned by Ulrich s to describe a list of writings relating to a particular subject, author or period (often with descriptive and critical annotations).

bulletin: A serial type that is either:

• A brief update or summary of current news; or
• A periodical published by an organization or society.

catalog: A serial type that is a list of items arranged systematically with descriptive details

ceased: A publication status indicating that a title is no longer being published. Ceased titles are also known as "cessations."

circulation: The circulation figures in Ulrich's records relate to the number of customers to whom the publication is sent per issue. It is not related to the number of articles published per issue or the number of titles published each year.

circulation (controlled): A circulation designation indicating that all of the subscribers to the serial are sent the publication as part of a group.

circulation (paid): A circulation designation indicating that the number reflects paid subscriptions to the serial.

circulation (unspecified): A circulation designation indicating that the type of circulation is not specified by the publisher or provider.

CODEN: CODEN is an alphanumeric code that uniquely identifies a specific publication. It was devised by the American Society for Testing and Materials, mainly for use on scientific and technical titles. The Chemical Abstracts Service assigns new CODENs.

consumer: A content type assigned by Ulrich s to describe publications such as magazines of general interest having an appeal to all audiences (e.g., Reader s Digest), and special interest magazines with editorial content which attracts the readers (e.g., The New Yorker). This conent type is also assigned to single interest magazines with a single editorial interest (e.g., Golf Digest) and to most literary magazines .

continuously: A publication frequency indicating that the serial or other continuing resource (for example, an updating website or database) is updated on a continuous basis.

Copyright Clearance Center: May appear in the Additional Title Details Section. Indicates that the serial is registered with the Copyright Clearance Center.

corporate author: May appear in the Publisher & Ordering Details section. Refers to an organization or body that sponsors the editorial content of a serial, although their primary purpose is not publishing.

database: An electronic collection of full-text, A&I data, or other content that is provided through a publisher, aggregator, or other provider as a package. For example, ProQuest Newsstand.

directory: A serial type that is an alphabetical or classified listing of names, addresses and other data. Must contain editorial content in order to be listed.

drop-down menu: Used in multiple places in Ulrichsweb. When you see a field similar to the one pictured below, simply click the down-arrow to reveal a list of options, then click the option you wish to choose:

forthcoming: A publication status indicating that an announcement has been made that a publication will be published in the future.

government: A content type assigned by Ulrich s to describe publications issued by a governmental office, agency, organization or body.

guide: A serial type used for travel guides only. A handbook of directions and other information, especially for travelers or tourists.

handbook/manual: A serial type used for a comprehensive and detailed work on a particular topic for practitioners, structured for quick reference, and often used as a supplement to a textbook. The term "handbook" is commonly used interchangeably with "manual."

Impact Factor: A measure of the frequency with which the "average article" in a journal has been cited in a particular year. Developed by ISI/Thomson Reuters and currently assigned by Clarivate Analytics, the impact factor helps the librarian evaluate a journal's relative importance, especially compared to other journals in the same field. The primary focus of the impact factor rating system is scientific, technical, medical (STM) journals.

ISSN: International Standard Serial Number. It is an eight-digit number assigned by the ISSN International Centre and its network of national centers. There is a hyphen after the fourth digit as a visual aid.

Not all serials have an ISSN. Publishers who wish to apply for a free ISSN should contact the national library or bibliographic center in the country where they are publishing.

To contact the international center:

ISSN International Centre
Centre International de l'ISSN
45 rue de Turbigo
75003 PARIS
FRANCE

Telephone : +33 1 44 88 22 20
FAX : +33 1 40 26 32 43
e-mail: issnic@issn.org
web: http://www.issn.org

The national center in the United States can be reached at:

Library of Congress
ISSN Publisher Liaison Section
101 Independence Ave., S.E.
Washington, DC 20540-4284

Tel.: (202) 707-6452
Fax: (202) 707-6333
Email: issn@loc.gov

journal: A serial type used for a periodical that presents news or research in a particular area or an official record of daily proceedings, as of a legislative body.

keyword: The keyword index includes the non-numeric terms from all of the other indexes (Title, Subject, etc.).

LC Class(ification) Number: Notation designating the subject in the Library of Congress Classification System to which the serial belongs.

magazine: A serial type used for a periodical containing a collection of articles, stories, pictures, or other features.

Magazines for Libraries : A ProQuest publication that consists of full-text reviews about magazines, journals, e-journal databases and other serial publications with subject specialists' recommendations for collection development in different types of libraries. Originally published in 1969, Magazines for Libraries was first edited by Bill Katz and is now edited by Cheryl LaGuardia. Reviews from Magazines for Libraries are included in Ulrichsweb and will appear in the Reviews section if present for the title.

MEDLINE abbreviation: MEDLINE is the National Library of Medicine's (NLM) bibliographic database covering the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the health care system, and the preclinical sciences. Individual titles in MEDLINE are designated by a specific title abbreviation.

merged/incorporated: A publication status that indicates a serial title that is either the result of the merger of more than one title to create a single publication, or a serial title that has been merged with another title to create a new publication.

monographic series: A serial type used for a numbered or unnumbered, open-ended series of publications on a specialized field of study or a single topics. The series may have a title such as "Advances in ..." while each volume may, in addition, have its own distinct title.

My Ulrich's: A user needs to set up a My Ulrich's account to access the Workspace to create and edit lists and set up alerts. However, this feature is optional and not necessary for searching Ulrichsweb.

newsletter: A serial type used for a printed sheet, pamphlet or small newspaper containing news and information of interest to a special group.

newspaper: A serial type used for a publication, usually issued daily or weekly, containing current news, articles of opinion, features, and advertising. Could be general-interest newspapers or specific-subject newspapers (for example, Wall Street Journal).

online: Refers to the availability of a serial in an electronic format that is available via the Internet. Online publications may be online full-text or online full-content serials.

Open Access: A publishing model for journals and other publications that makes their content freely available on the public Internet for searching, copying, downloading, and printing. Open Access (OA) journals are full-text publications that are available to the reader at no charge. Costs for publication of OA journals may come from grant funding, from the authors of the articles in the journals, or other sources, but payment by the reader is not required for access. Open Access journals are indicated by an open-lock icon in search results.

OpenURL: A protocol for interoperability between an information resource and a context-sensitive service in an open linking environment. The structure of the OpenURL conveys metadata about an information object (such as an electronic journal) so that the object can be correctly identified and ultimately linked to in the target resource. Ulrichsweb is OpenURL-aware and can be linked to, and out of, via an OpenURL.

operator: In the Advanced Search workspace, a Boolean operator is used to combine, include, or exclude selected search terms. The search operators in Ulrichsweb are: ALL, ANY, and NONE.

other features: May appear in the Additional Title Details section. Refers to features that the serial includes such as bibliographies, illustrations, charts, reviews books, reviews of films, or reviews of software.

peer-reviewed: See "refereed" below.

periodical [type of publication]: A publication that is issued frequently (e.g. daily, weekly, monthly, semi-annually). A periodical differs from a serial in that a serial is issued in parts or chronologically. The terms "periodical" and "serial" are often used interchangeably when talking about non-monographic publications.

price data abbreviations: The Price Data section uses abbreviations for currencies when reporting publication costs. See definitions of those abbreviations.

proceedings: A serial type use, generally, for "an official record of things said or done." In practice, proceedings are often more than minutes of a meeting; rather, they are a record of scholarly papers presented at conferences or congresses.

proximity [for search]: The tilde (~) character may be used at the end of multiple words to define how close those words should appear. For example, when used on the search "yeast bread ~10" the results will only include instances where the terms "yeast" and "bread" are 10 words apart or less.

publication status: See "status" below.

refereed:  Also known as "Refereed/Peer-Reviewed". This is a single designation in Ulrich's. Refers to the system of critical evaluation of manuscripts/articles by professional colleagues or peers (also called referees). Multiple types of peer-review (e.g., double-blind, expert) are included under this designation. The content of these refereed publications is sanctioned, vetted, or otherwise approved by a peer-review or editorial board. The peer-review and evaluation system is utilized to protect, maintain, and raise the quality of scholarly material published in serials. Publications subject to the process are assumed, then, to contain higher quality content than those that are not. Refereed publications are indicated by an icon representing a sport referee's shirt.

relevance: A measure of how well results match your query, often based on frequency of occurrence within an entry.

report: A serial type for a written document describing the findings of some individual or group.

researched/unresolved: A publication status that indicates Ulrich's has extensively researched a serial for the latest information, but has been unable to get updated information from the publisher or provider since that company's last update cycle.

RSS Availability: May appear in the Online Availability section. Refers to the availability of content updates for a serial directly from a provider via RSS (Really Simple Syndication).

reviewed: Do not confuse with "Refereed/Peer-Reviewed". A designation in Ulrich's denoting a publication that has been reviewed or recommended by the librarian-contributors of Magazines for Libraries. A link to the librarian-authored review is included in the Title Details View for the serial title. (Reviews prior to 2007 also included reviews from Library Journal and other independent reviews.) Recommended titles are indicated by a star icon in search results.

search criterion: A "search criterion" is (1) a term you type into an empty field, (2) a term you select from a drop down menu, or (3) a term you select by clicking a checkbox or radio button.

serial [type of publication]: A publication issued over a period of time, usually on a regular basis (such as weekly or monthly), with enumeration used to identify issues (e.g. volumes, issue numbers, dates). Serials, unlike other multi-volume publications, are intended to be published indefinitely with no pre-determined end date. Monographic series or book series that bear a collective title also qualify as serials. Ulrich's editorial evaluates each title and assigns the serial type. The publisher can suggest a type, but every title is reviewed by an editor.

status: The designation that indicates whether a serial is currently in publication or is not currently published. Status types include:

• Active
• Announced Never Published
• Ceased
• Forthcoming
• Merged/Incorporated
• Researched/Unresolved
• Suspended

See the specific status designations elsewhere in this Glossary for definitions of those terms.

suspended: A publication status indicating that a title is not currently being published, but the publisher intends to resume publication.

title field: The title fields are:

• title
• subtitle
• former titles
• many different kinds of alternate titles (such as a translated title)

title history: May appear on the Search Results page or in the Title History section. Indicates that the title of the serial has changed over time. Where available, the previous titles, previous ISSNs, and other information are included.

trade: A content type assigned by Ulrich s to describe the primary audience for the publication. This content type is assigned to business publications targeted to readers in the following fields of employment or commerce: industrial or manufacturing; merchandising or trade; institutional; and professional.

Ulrich's Alerts: A feature of Ulrichsweb that can be enabled by the user to provide monthly email alerts of newly added titles, title changes, and title cessations from Ulrich's Update that meet criteria selected by the user.

Ulrich's Update: A feature of Ulrichsweb that compiles newly added titles, title changes, title cessations, and title mergers.

wildcard [for search]: A symbol or character that can be substituted for another character (for example, a question mark for a letter) in a search term, or a symbol or character (for example, the asterisk sign) than can be used to truncate a search term.

Wildcards are useful if the user is uncertain of a spelling or wants to retrieve records that include variations of a term.

The three wildcards used in Ulrichsweb are: *, ?, and ~

• * (asterisk) can take the place of more than one letter. For example, a search on 'sprin*' will return spring, Springer, springs, sprint, sprints, sprinted, etc., anywhere in the field searched. The asterisk may not be used as the first character of a search.
• ? (question mark) is the wildcard that replaces a specific character in a search term. For example, a search on 'basi?' will return basic and basis, but will not find the plural cases of these words or words that start with these letters.
• ~ (tilde) is the wildcard that can be used at the end of a word to match similar terms. When used on the term "Lead~" it will match "Wead", "Veade", and "Tead".

yearbook: A serial type for a documentary, memorial, or historical book published every year, containing information about the previous year.

• Date Created: 9-Feb-2014
• Last Edited Date: 27-Mar-2019
• Old Article Number: 8908