Library Search: More Than Just a Name

Academic libraries have many different names for the big inviting search boxes now so ubiquitous on the home pages of their websites. These prominently placed invitations to search facilitate simultaneous access to many resources available at the library and beyond.

From the home page of the Edith Garland Dupré Library (library.louisiana.edu), one can search immediately accessible digital and physical holdings as well as extensive indexes of scholarly publications available through interlibrary loan. These searches are conducted using the EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS), free to users and one of the library's most important annual investments.

The Dupré Library search box is labeled “Library Search,” a nomenclature reinforced in our library classes, guides, and online instruction videos. We call it Library Search to make clear that the search is being done through the library. Researchers’ attention is thus drawn to the fact that they are using a search tool that provides access to library resources and that this means of search is provided and maintained by library time, effort, expertise, and financial resources.

Why is it important to emphasize that this search tool is available through the library?

Dupré Library has been collaborating with the UL Lafayette Office of First Year Experience for many years to survey incoming first year students to assess evolving information literacy needs. We ask them questions about their research experiences in K-12, the extent to which they have used libraries to support that research, and some information literacy questions regarding their ability to identify and evaluate different types of resources. These annual surveys have consistently revealed that very few of our incoming students have ever had to use library resources for the research papers they completed K-12. Many have yet to ask a librarian for help finding the resources needed to write papers and complete projects.

Clearly, one of our most significant challenges as an academic library is to convince students and faculty that our services, collections, and search tools are of any use at all in undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate research. “Libraries play an essential role in support of academic research” is no longer a shared assumption upon which we can rely. Without consistent and effective efforts to maintain visible relevance, libraries will end up a vestigial limb of earlier research methods no longer in common use. It will not save library services and collections to offer vital resources and expertise if students and faculty don’t think to ask for them or know how helpful those services and collections are.

The advantage of the name Library Search is that it reinforces that the search box on our home page is a tool that comes from the library. While it searches more than just what we have in our collections, we want researchers to remember that the library is actively providing access to resources essential to academic research and that extends beyond what is freely available on the internet. Library Search is the perfect complement to Google and Google Scholar searches. Library-assisted research employing our search tools, chat, user services desk visits, and research appointments will identify resources that richly supplement what a student or faculty researcher can find on their own.

It is no accident but rather highly effective marketing that Google Search starts with the company name, and all related product names (Gmail, Google Maps, Google Docs, etc.) reinforce Google branding. The Dupré team is doing the same with the word Library, encouraging students and faculty to do both a Google or other web search and a Library Search. In our case, Library is the brand, because we are teaching our students about the utility of not only our academic library, but all kinds of libraries. Memorably communicating the value of library services and collections supports our broader educational goal to empower those we serve to adeptly navigate lives and careers in the Information Age.

Library Search and prosper!

— Jennifer Hamilton, Assistant Professor and Head of Instructional Services

Article in Dupré Digest, Library Newsletter, Summer 2024, Issue 1