Inculsion of Search Boxes on Library Homepages - An Overview

When evaluating the library home page for a new design, I reviewed the inclusion and search targets of the search boxes on the library homepages of Libraries identified on Librarytechnology.org as having both Millennium and Summon, and Irish Academic Libraries irrespective of ILS or RDS. Where no box was immediately evident, but a link offered, this is noted in the table below.

Millennium is the library management software, and Summon is a resource discovery layer.  Both are used to provide search options to library web site users for locating print and electronic information.
Where another interface is offered instead this is noted. There is a clear trend to offer search on tabbed content or links, as opposed to search boxes on the homepage (14 sites)

Homepages were visited in July 2013.

Overview results

Institution	Library OPAC	Summon	Other	Comment
Brown University			VuFind
Darlarna University		*		Summon only
Dartmouth College			One Search	Parsed records, with three results columns: Summon, Library Catalogue, Library Web Site.
Fairfield			Search options offered on tabs, with addtional information on mouse roll over
Middlebury College			Tabbed search option
Murdoch University		*		Summon only
Queensland University of Technology		*		Customised with check boxes for all, articles, etc.)
Temple University			Search Tabs
University of Houston			Lefthand menu - very clear
University of Miami			Search Tabs
University of Nevada			Popdown menu
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill			Search tabs including Google Scholar includes options for articles and catalog
University of Tasmania			Tick boxes	then databases, journals, catalog (keyword & classic) and help. Then explore more,  includes, citation finder, and ILL core tools.
Victoria University	*	*	Search options listed, summon, book and e-books, and journal articles
University College Cork			Search Tabs
Trinity College Dublin			Search Tabs
University of Limerick			Search Tabs
NUI Galway			One search box, with more options
Dublin City University			Search tabs
NUI Maynooth			Search tabs
GMIT		*	and Google custom search
AIT			Search tabs
ITB	*	*	via tick boxes
ITC	*
CIT	*	*
IADT			Search Tabs
DKIT	*
LYIT	*
LIT		*
Sligo IT		*	Search tabs
ITT Dublin		*	search tabs	Summon branded Find IT
ITTR	*		Link to summon
WIT	*		Link to summon
DIT	*		Link to summon