In the Wake of Discovery: Student Perceptions, Integration, and Instructional Design

Abstract

Academic libraries have increasingly adopted web-scale discovery tools in order to meet the expectations of students who want immediate results, efficient algorithms, and a single search box. As they have become the de facto search tool at many libraries, librarians and patrons alike have been forced to confront the way they think about research processes and in some cases, modulate ingrained habits. In this article, the authors explore student perceptions of efficacy, relevancy, and ease of use of a library discovery tool through a 2017 mixed-methods user experience study conducted at three City University of New York (CUNY) campuses. The results from this user study will be useful to other institutions that already have implemented discovery layers within their library and help inform website design, discovery layer design, and pedagogy. By combining student interviews with a task analysis, the authors were able to learn more about student search behaviors, how they respond to challenges, and what they expect from search tools. Identifying these barriers to student use of the Primo discovery tool has helped us articulate best practices for instruction and interface customization that may address these barriers and has illuminated implications for website integration.

Keywords:

• Discovery tools
• Primo
• user experience
• academic libraries
• information literacy instruction
• research

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the support of Nora Almeida of the New York City College of Technology in completing this user study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alexandra Hamlett

Alexandra Hamlett is an Information Literacy Librarian at Guttman Community College of the City University of New York (CUNY). Her research interests include information literacy instruction, active learning, and authorship.

Helen Georgas

Helen Georgas is a reference librarian and associate professor at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York (CUNY). Her research on student research behaviors and information literacy instruction has been published in several leading librarianship journals.