Sometimes also called a 'preliminary search', a prior art search is when you search patents and other publications to try to determine if your invention (or one very similar to it) is already known or available. This is important because an invention must be 'new' and 'non-obvious' in order to be patented. Often inventors conduct some prior art searching on their own, but some also hire patent attorneys to do additional searching. You can read more about prior art searching on this USPTO page.
PTRC Representatives are happy to show you how to do a prior art search, and/or answer additional questions. You can contact us by email at lib-ptrc@osu.edu.
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