WORLD WIDE WEB TERMS AND ACRONYMS
- World-Wide Web (the Web, WWW, W3): a client-server information system that uses the Internet to access computers containing millions of hypertext documents
- Web page: a single hypertext document written in HTML--Hypertext Markup Language
- Web site: a collection of linked Web pages on a Web server
- Home Page: the first point of entry to a Web site; help is often available there. See http://www.library.cornell.edu/okuref/, for example
- Web client: the computer and software you use to access Web pages
- Web server: the computer and software that you contact on the Internet to access a Web site
- Web browser: the client software you use to find and display Web pages
- Web search engine: Software that allows searching of the content of Internet sites. Web Search engines work much like the searching software in the Cornell Library Catalog. See the Internet Search page.
- hypertext: documents containing embedded links (hyperlinks) to other documents or other parts of the same document
- HTML: Hypertext Markup Language, the rules for formatting a Web page so that a Web browser displays the page properly
- URL: Uniform Resource Locator, the address of a document on the World Wide Web. Browsers allow you to enter a known address of a Web server or a specific document within that server. Addresses begin with http://, ftp://, gopher://, WAIS://, file://
- protocols: sets of communication rules that allow clients and servers to communicate accurately with each other
- HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the rules that govern the transmission of Web documents from one computer to another via the Internet
- SLIP: Serial Line Internet Protocol, allows Internet use via a telephone connection
- Netscape: a browser from the Netscape Corp., originally based on NCSA Mosiac
- Internet Explorer: a browser developed by Microsoft
- MacWeb, WinWeb: browsers for Macintosh and Windows that have low memory requirements and are suitable for older computers
- Lynx: a text-only browser
- JPEG, GIF: files that process and display data as visual images on Web pages
- NCSA: National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois, developers of Mosaic browsing software
- CERN: Swiss research center (European Laboratory for Particle Physics) that originally developed the World Wide Web as a tool for scientific collaboration
Go to the O*K*U Reference Home Page
Division of Reference Services, Olin*Kroch*Uris Libraries
Cornell University Library
Revised February 4, 1998
URL: http://www.library.cornell.edu/okuref/research/glossary.html
Olin and Uris Libraries, Cornell University, Ithaca NY 14853
Information and reference: 607-255-4144, okuref@cornell.edu
Circulation: (Olin) 607-255-4245, (Uris) 607-255-3537, okucirc@cornell.edu