The recent announcement that Penn Library’s searching tool, Franklin, will be updated soon had us close to cheering — of course, that would feel wrong, because we’re told that we’re not supposed to be cheering in the library.
Still, we are genuinely happy that Franklin, the library’s internal search engine, is being updated. Currently, Franklin is cumbersome, confusing and a far cry from Google, the typical Penn student’s standard search tool. The library’s recognition of this and the steps it is taking to rectify the problem are much appreciated by the student body.
Most students do research and write papers on a pretty tight schedule. Franklin has been an unreliable and hard-to-navigate resource, as students have trouble finding the works they actually need in time to write their paper. Instead, they turn to public searches and open-source journals to help locate the materials they need. Updating Franklin means that Penn students will continue to use the Penn Library in the future.
