The “QuickSearch” is confusing. What exactly is it searching? Why is it so hard to find a link to the book catalog?

First, thank you for giving our new Library homepage, which is currently available for preview and comment.  Sorry for any confusion you might have about Quicksearch. It’s simply designed to provide a starting point. You can enter any term or phrase in the search box, and the search will return the number of results you will retrieve in a variety of sources. So you will retrieve some recommended databases, results from Academic Search Premier and the library catalog. It also returns links to subject guides that can help you with your research by recommending many other potential sources of information. So Quick Search doesn’t return actual citations for books and magazines. Rather, it is a starting point and suggests resources for your research.

We have tried to make it easy to get to the book catalog. There is a link to it under “Quick Links” (see Diamond Catalog) and when you use the quick search you automatically get results from the book catalog (see the link under the “Databases” category) – so you don’t even need to find a link to the catalog.  Quick Search already gives you a search result.

If you still find Quick Search confusing – or if there is anything about the new homepage design you’d like to make a suggestion about – please follow up with additional comments or suggestions to Steven Bell, Associate University Librarian.