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They don’t know what they don’t know.
They don’t realize that if they don’t find it in their catalog, it doesn’t mean it’s not available at their institution. Often, they need to try a different way of searching in order to find the item. They may not know the correct vocabulary to use and therefore need to take a step back in their research to discover the correct vocabulary.
They are directed to librarians by their professors, and librarians will connect them with sources to search and tips for conducting the search. They’ll start with the general reference desk librarian and then be routed to a special subjects librarian if they need more specialized searches.
They don’t know facets exist or how to use them.
Because they are inexperienced, they don’t understand that specificity matters.
They require greater error tolerance than SearchWorks allows them.
They start searching at on Google.
Languages other than the ones they understand are a barrier because they don’t know how to search in a different language. They also may not know the correct spelling (including diacritics), or they may not know how to search for something in a language that uses characters other than the English alphabet.
To get inexperienced researchers heading in the right direction, librarians provide guides specific to subject or course to help them so as much research on their own before they have to seek assistance.
Undergraduate students may take workshops on how to research and how to use the library, including an introduction to reference desk librarians. Need to do more research on how this experience could be augmented through use of linked data.
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