How many of you run automated searches? Are they returning the same excellent results? When did you last update them with new search terms? It’s easy to fall into complacency: running the same search, on the same platform, week after week, without reconsidering whether your terms and vocabulary are still fit for purpose and lead to search success.
You can be certain that only your searches are static. Everything else evolves. Platforms evolve, content (legislation, cases, news, etc) changes, industries shift and new related search terms emerge. If library and research people want to deliver trusted, relevant information to end users, our language must evolve too.
Meanwhile, if we are exploring language, we can explore other interesting ideas along the way. How is your GenAlpha vocabulary? Where do cave paintings come in? Finally, what can we do to supercharge our searching and AI prompting? Read on to find out more!
Morning was cooked (calls glitching out 💀). Bailed, secured the bag = beach day. Pink towel giving Guava Girl, feral girl dinner later, finished the side quest with some trash TV. Lore grows.
I’d love to say I wrote this snippet of modern language fluently, or that it was easy to write – but I didn’t, and it wasn’t. Learning new language is hard, whether you’re in a different country or a different generation.
It illustrates how language can both connect and divide. It’s the key to communication and participation, but it can also exclude or protect depending on who understands it (or not!). If you don’t speak the language, you’re on the outside. This duality is at the heart of how language functions as both a bridge and a barrier.
It’s a dynamic that goes all the way back to the earliest communication systems. Survival has always depended on shared communication systems.
Recent research on cave paintings reveals how some marks served as proto-writing, a shared system to record and transmit crucial survival data. It is a possibility that the paintings were, in effect, an ancient group chat, a way to coordinate, share tools, and increase the odds of success in a challenging environment.
Fast forward to today: our taxonomies, controlled vocabularies, search forms and AI-enhanced platforms are the modern equivalent. The words we choose determine whether collective knowledge can be accessed and acted upon.
The same concept can be described in different ways depending on time, jurisdiction, or user group. If we don’t include all the new vocabulary, we risk delivering irrelevant or incomplete results. Information people know that context is everything – an accurate term in one legal or industrial setting may mislead in another.
In her fantastic BIALL session, Holly Mottram gave us an example of some challenging terms. What are the differences between “petitioner”, “claimant” and “applicant”? They all refer to individuals initiating legal actions, claims or proceedings. However, we need to understand the distinction between them all to retrieve the right material for our users.
We all know that jargon can assist with precision within a community but confuses outsiders. The key is to use it thoughtfully – as a tool, not a barrier. So how can we stay flexible and ensure the right terms are at our fingertips?
Vocabulary is key. The broader and more sophisticated, the stronger your prompts and searches will be. When crafting AI prompts, choosing words like comprehensive, concise, contrarian, nuanced, analytical, imaginative, vivid, and perspicacious can make a real difference to the results.
As ever, knowledge is also key. The more background knowledge you have, the better the search or prompt will be. Information people need context to ensure the best results. Embrace your wide-ranging general knowledge and subject knowledge – and supplement it with wider reading. Especially if it involves understanding a new generation of vocabulary!
Improving search outcomes is easier than it used to be because the user experience has improved, and there are now sophisticated online help options. As information people, we must trust our end users’ search capabilities because there is more help available to them. Remember, our role is more than just searching, we have more value to offer; to nurture a shared, evolving system of organisational knowledge.
Just as cave paintings formed a shared system that helped early humans survive, our language systems today must stay dynamic if we want to thrive in complex information environments. Language is still our survival tool. We must stay flexible, collaborative, and ready to change.
Review your searches regularly. Refresh your vocabulary. Embrace AI tools but always sense-check the results. Because language doesn’t stand still – and neither can we.
Try the powerful and easy-to-use KnowAll Matrix with no obligations, no commitment, no installation
 | Thank you for Signing Up |
Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.
