The Death of the Search Bar? - Conversational Discovery vs. Boolean Logic

dlaufenberg — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 20:20:06 GMT

Prompt: As our library discovery layers (like Primo and Summon) integrate more 'Conversational AI' wrappers, we’re seeing a generation of students who have never used a Boolean operator ($AND$, $OR$, $NOT$).

Are we doing a disservice by letting 'Natural Language Processing' (NLP) hide the mechanics of research? Or is the 'Search Bar' as we know it becoming a legacy tool, like the card catalog before it? How are you adapting your Information Literacy sessions to explain how these algorithms rank 'relevance'?"

Context: Recent scholarship from the 2026 ACRL Virtual Symposium suggests that "Algorithm Literacy" is now more critical than "Database Navigation." The shift is from teaching where to click to teaching how the machine interprets the query.

topic The Death of the Search Bar? - Conversational Discovery vs. Boolean Logic in Discussions

The Death of the Search Bar? - Conversational Discovery vs. Boolean Logic