Understanding library lingo: stacks, circulating, and reference There's legalese, and then there's libraryese. Although being understood is a priority of librarians, there are a few cases where library terminology could use some explaining. Probably one of the most mysterious library terms is stacks. More patrons using a CARL online catalog ask about this word than about any other. And for a good reason. CARL indicates the location of books as either REF or STACKS. Wipe that puzzled look off your face, because stacks means nothing more than the area of shelves where most of the books are stored. More precisely, as used by CARL, the books on the shelves that circulate and are not reference. (Uh-oh, now we have two more words that could use some explanation. But first, let's get back to stacks.) When you think about it, stacks is a very plain word that somehow crept into library jargon. Perhaps it was formed sometime in the murky beginning period of libraries, before shelves had even been invented. This was in the BS period ("before shelves") when a caveman might have said, "Let's stack the books over there" or "it's in that stack of books."  Or, "while you're stacking those mammoth bones, would you also stack these books?" Anyway, among a myriad of other meanings of the word, stacks has etched its place in the library vocabulary. Now for some contemporary tips for using this word. If you really want to sound as if you're no stranger to libraries, you could use the word stacks in the following ways. "Moby Dick? It's in the stacks." Or: "I just saw John following Mary into the stacks." Or: "Your library is so huge, I got lost in the stacks." But more specific to the designation in the CARL catalog listings, as just mentioned, stacks refers to shelved books and other materials that "circulate." Circulate is just another term meaning "check out." Just as blood circulates, or that extroverted loudmouth circulates at a party, books circulate. Circulating books are "checkoutable." Non-circulating books (non-checkoutable books) are reference books, hence the designation REF in the CARL catalog under the heading of location. Of course, now we've opened up another question or two, if you want to go further with this. How did the word "reference" end up meaning non-circulating? And this inevitably leads to another  enigma: Why are some books not allowed to check out, or circulate? Now you might be thinking, isn't this a bit extraneous to the whole matter of this article's purpose, that of defining library lingo? Well, not really, because the meaning of the word reference is so inextricably wrapped up within the context of how reference books function. The main function of reference books or resources is to provide information that is organized in such a way as to locate the information quickly and easily: facts, statistics, dates, names, places, etc. Reference books and resources are primarily "look-up" books and resources as opposed to materials that are read from beginning to end. Logic dictates that "look-up" books for the most part need not be checked out to serve their function, which often is of brief duration. For that reason, Tolstoy's War and Peace circulates, while an encyclopedia of the civil war does not. (That doesn't mean that some reference books cannot be read enjoyably from cover to cover, which is why some reference books do circulate. And, incidentally, copies of a single title have exactly the same call number in both the circulating and reference areas at ACC, except that the latter's call number is preceded by REF on the book spine.) Logic also dictates that reference books should be separated physically for easier access in its own reference section. With this function of reference, we get those look-it-up specialists, reference librarians, who work in reference departments at the reference desk, providing reference service, such as answering reference questions, especially from ready reference collections and sources. There are many other meanings for the word reference, as in the verb to reference, meaning to arrange (notes, data, etc.) for easy reference. The word refer means to direct for information or anything required: as in "he referred me to books on astrology." The many other meanings of reference do not relate that closely to the library definitions we have been talking about. But if we look at the etymology of the word reference, we see that it derives from the Latin referre, meaning "to bring back." Certainly when we look up something in a reference book or in an electronic database, the information that was compiled in those resources is brought back to us, and usually in a relatively quick and convenient manner.

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