Lexicon of Loony Library Lore
In the spirit of the 90's (which--as mathematicians and social historians tell us--combine the spirit of the 60's with the spirit of the 30's), we offer the following definitions, acronyms, sniglets and nerds of wisdom so that ye might have insight into the wonderful world of academic librarianship, and that ye might have it more abundantly:
ACRL = All Colleges "Respect" Librarians
ALA = Associated Liberals Anonymous
ARL = A Ranking List
BCR = Bibliographic Computers Rule
BI = Boredom Incarnate
BITNET = a BIT of New Electronic Trash
BYLINE = Brigham's Youngsters stand in LINE
CARS Searchers = (library workers who locate automobiles for library patrons)
CD-ROM = Change Discs on Really ObsoleteMachines
CJK = Commercial Japan is King
CMDC = Can we Mitigate Drivel in Committees ?
DYNIX = Deal with You-niversities??!?NIX!!
ELWC = Eat, Laugh, Woo, Cuddle
ERIC = Educational Repetition Is Cool
FastCat = Fauna: A Special Turbo-powered Cheetah ofAfrican Terrain
GATEWAY = Goofy Access To Educational netWork At Yale
GODORT = GOvernment DOcuments aRe Troublesome
GTO = Get Technology Off (my back)
HBLL = Husband-Baiting Ladies' Lair
or: Hey! these Books Look Laborious!
or: How Bibliogophers Love Lectures
or: Hardy Boys? JuveniLe Left...
or: Howard Bybee Likes Latin
HONCHO = Hey, Our Notis Can't Handle Online (serial information)
ILS = I Lose Sleep
ISBN = I Swiftly Bundle Numbers
ISSN = I Soon Switch Numbers
LAN = Loony Apparatus, Nonpermanent
LC = Lame Copy
LCSH = Loosely Created, Sometimes Harebrained
LGTO = Let's Get Technology Off (our backs)
LIBRARY BUDGET = Let's Inventory the Books Requested And Recommended by You.
Bet yoU Didn't Get Enough, True?
LTLE = a LiTLE user-unfriendly
LUI = Let's Use Imagination
LUNCH = Let Us Now Chomp Hastily
MARC = Machines Are Relatively Crazy
MDAS = Millions of Dollars Access Serials
MLA = Mogadishu Literary Abstracts
NOTIS = Now Our Technology Is Superseded
or: NOT In Step
OCLC = Our Computers don't Like your Computers
OPAC = Ornery, Perplexing And Carcinogenic
PC = Paralyzing and Costly
PLA = Public Libraries are Anemic
Psychopath = (best search strategy for PsychAbstracts)
Quarto = (Latin term for a book written in 4 parts;
also refers at times to a Mexican milk container)
RBMS = Rare Books--Much Spent
Recon = (a convict who has paid his debt to society and now works in the library)
Reclass = (moving from rank to rank as outlined in the HBLL rank advancement document)
RLG = Running Low on Gas
RLIN = (first name of the custodian employed by the library for the past 20 years)
Serials Dept. = (area of the library that processes books dealing with breakfast foods)
SFLC = Such Fine Little Children
Sociopath = (best search strategy for SocioAbstracts)
TNRB = The Noxious Remunerations of Business
ULO = UnLikely Operations
UMI = Unuseful Mix of Information
UNIX = UNfIXed
Union list = (list of states in alphabetical order)
Withdrawn books = (books about introverts)