diff --git a/src/doc/imageioapi.rst b/src/doc/imageioapi.rst
index b04319952f..4f0623675d 100644
--- a/src/doc/imageioapi.rst
+++ b/src/doc/imageioapi.rst
@@ -340,6 +340,16 @@ inside the source code.
         imagecache->attribute ("options", value);
 
 
+``OPENIMAGEIO_PLUGIN_PATH``
+
+    A colon-separated list of directories to search for OpenImageIO plugins
+    (dynamicaly loadable libraries that implement image format readers
+    and writers).
+
+    This is a new name beginning with OpenImageIO 2.6.3. The old name
+    ``OIIO_LIBRARY_PATH`` is still supported, but deprecated.
+
+
 ``OPENIMAGEIO_TEXTURE_OPTIONS``
 
     Allows you to seed the options for any TextureSystem created.
diff --git a/src/doc/imageoutput.rst b/src/doc/imageoutput.rst
index b84f23f7eb..895df378fb 100644
--- a/src/doc/imageoutput.rst
+++ b/src/doc/imageoutput.rst
@@ -1647,7 +1647,7 @@ user's home directory is :file:`/home/tom`), and if not found there, will
 then check the directory :file:`/shared/plugins`.
 
 The first search path it will check is that stored in the environment
-variable ``OIIO_LIBRARY_PATH``.  It will check each directory in turn, in
+variable ``OPENIMAGEIO_PLUGIN_PATH``.  It will check each directory in turn, in
 the order that they are listed in the variable.  If no adequate plugin is
 found in any of the directories listed in this environment variable, then it
 will check the custom searchpath passed as the optional second argument to
diff --git a/src/libOpenImageIO/imageioplugin.cpp b/src/libOpenImageIO/imageioplugin.cpp
index a6b5356b07..c192035fbe 100644
--- a/src/libOpenImageIO/imageioplugin.cpp
+++ b/src/libOpenImageIO/imageioplugin.cpp
@@ -468,6 +468,8 @@ pvt::catalog_all_plugins(std::string searchpath)
     std::call_once(builtin_flag, catalog_builtin_plugins);
 
     std::unique_lock<std::recursive_mutex> lock(imageio_mutex);
+    append_if_env_exists(searchpath, "OPENIMAGEIO_PLUGIN_PATH", true);
+    // obsolete name:
     append_if_env_exists(searchpath, "OIIO_LIBRARY_PATH", true);
 
     size_t patlen = pattern.length();