Izmir Institute of
Technology
Experience with Discovery Services
SUMMON OR EDS

We began to use the SUMMON on 23 March 2010 as
a beta partner.

We began to use the EBSCO Discovery Services (EDS)
on 24 May 2010 as a trial.

We decided to subscribe to SUMMON at November
2010 after negotiating the price. (We compared
SUMMON price with EDS price also.)
Some Examples (29 July 2010)
Example 1:
Journal of Architectural Education (1984) (1046-4883)
from 1984 to 1999 in JSTOR
from 1999 to present in Wiley-Blackwell
from 01/09/1999 to 1 year ago in Academic Search Complete
from 01/09/1999 to 1 year ago in Humanities International Complete
The Number of
Articles – The
First Page
Full-Text
Articles
The Number of
Articles – The Last
Page
Date
(Oldest) Full-Text
Date (Newest)
Full-Text
EDS
2324
1360
614
1999
May.09
SUMMON
831
831
1999
Mar.10
Some Examples (29 July 2010)
Example 2:
Communications on Pure and Applied Mathematics
from 1996 to present in Wiley-Blackwell
The Number of
Articles – The
First Page
EDS
SUMMON
Full-Text
Articles
The Number
of Articles –
The Last Page
Date (Oldest)
-Full-Text
Date
(Newest)
Full-Text
January 1997
September
2010
Not found
801
801
Some Examples (29 July 2010)
Example 3:
Advanced Materials (Weinheim) (0935 – 9648)
from 1998 to present in Wiley-Blackwell
EDS
SUMMON
The Number
of Articles –
The First Page
39.975
18.179
Full-Text
Articles
The Number of
Articles – The Last
Page
Date (Oldest)
-Full-Text
Date (Newest)
Full-Text
23.459
8.024
July 1996
July 2010
August 1996
July 2010
18.179
18.064 (Until the
page of 20)
THE NOTES ABOUT SUMMON
1- All the records from IYTE catalog didn't come in the Summon. For example we searched at
"Kemal Sunal" both IYTE cataloging and SUMMON. There were 17 records in the IYTE catalog. But
there were 14 records in the SUMMON. Also we couldn't find this article anywhere: 350,000
ILLEGAL ALIENS LEAVE SAUDI ARABIA: 2 Edition (Washington Times ISSN: 0732-8494 Date:
07/05/2000 Description: A.10)
According to 360Link result, we could have found it Newspaper Source or Regional Business
News but we couldn't. Also Newspaper Source or Regional Business News doesn't have any
issues in the “Washington Times” the date of 07/05/2000.
2- We searched at "Comedy film" both IYTE cataloging and SUMMON. There were 223 records
in the IYTE catalog. But there were 203 records in the SUMMON.
THE NOTES ABOUT SUMMON
3- We searched at "A hybrid fuzzy goal programming approach with different goal priorities to
aggregate production planning" in the SUMMON. There were two records:
But we couldn’t find the second record according to this data.
THE NOTES ABOUT SUMMON
4- We searched at “Journal of Intelligent & Fuzzy Systems” in the SUMMON. Publisher
of this journal is Springer and we can access all issues from 1997 to present. We
noticed that we could access only the year of 2009 in the SUMMON.
We needed to know access years of all journals which we subscribe, according to
SUMMON aggrements.
Besides, we needed to know which journals which we subscribe couldn’t be accessed
in the SUMMON.
THE NOTES ABOUT SUMMON
5. The search results haven’t been included item number. We think that item number should be
written…
6. Some of the records didn’t include abstract.
Preview
Journal
Article
Credits
Author: Anonymous
Publication Title
Presidential Studies Quarterly
Date
12/2009
Volume
39
Issue
4
Start Page
0_3
ISSN
0360-4918
Genre
Credits, Credits
Language
English
Summon Beta and feedback/ issues raised
Date: 29th August 2010
Summary of questions raised: Serials Solutions response:
1. Does summon search both fulltext and Bibliographic content?
- Yes.
2. Can Both fulltext and bibliographic content be searched at the same time?
- Yes.
3. If IYTE requests can summon search only bibliographic content?
- No.
4. What is the meaning of “Add results beyond your library's collection” filter?
- Summon is unique in the way it is set-up as all Summon users search across the same Summon index containing the
same body of content. However, based on our knowledge of the library’s holdings information, Summon only
displays to the user search results for content that the library has access to (plus their catalog and other local
collections). This ensures that your users only see results from your library’s collection.
When a user chooses to “add results beyond your library’s collections” the results set expands to include all
materials in the entire Summon index (with the exception of all of the catalogs from other libraries).
To try to clarify the example above, if a user searches “Bill Clinton” at Dartmouth College’s Summon site one gets:
- 1,168,071 results. Dartmouth users have access to all of these results.
-If a the user then clicks Add “results beyond library collection” the results set expands to 2,335,428 results which
includes everything in the Summon index related to the user’s “Bill Clinton” query regardless of whether users at
Dartmouth have access to that material or not. If a user tries to access an article that Dartmouth users do not have
the rights to, they will get a message from the library’s link resolver telling them that they do not have access to that
article.
Running a blank search on any Summon site, scoped to “beyond your library collection” showcases all of the content
in the Summon index (almost than 500,000,000 items).
Summon Beta and feedback/ issues raised
Date: 29th August 2010
5. Do you have any list of titles that overlap between IYTE and Summon with coverage dates? (for
example IYTE can access a title between 1997-2010 and summon also covers this title with different
coverage 2000-2009 so 2 years is missing so IYTE wants to see this partial overlapping )
- For the vast majority of content partners that Summon works with, we get the full run, full coverage
dates so that matching coverage years to IYTE should not be an issue. The vast majority of our article
content is indexed in full text, which means that it is full text searchable. As content coverage changes
all the time, we do not yet have a list that we can share that shows what is full text or just metadata
(bibliographic content). We will have this soon.
6. How many records has only bibliographic content (no fulltext content) in SUMMON?
- The vast majority of our article content is indexed in full text, which means that it is full text
searchable. As content coverage changes all the time, we do not yet have a list that we can share that
shows what is full text or just metadata (bibliographic content). We will have this soon.
As a follow-up to question 3 above, we are curious why your library would be interested in just search
bibliographic data only?
From the user perspective it should not matter if they are searching the full text or the metadata only.
What matters is that Summon is making this material discoverable and allowing users to zoom in on
relevant results. If the libary has access to an article or resource in full-text, Summon will link the user
to the full-text in the library’s collection via the Link Resolver, regardless of whether the information
in Summon is indexed in full text, as metadata only, or as a combination.
Summon Beta and feedback/ issues raised
Date: 29th August 2010
7. What is the meaning of “Library location” facet? If it means library records it is wrong because
numbers are completely different from library catalog.
- The library location facet displays bases on information in the location field of your Marc records,
based on the results returned for the users query. In some cases it is possible that the same query in
Summon performed in your catalog may return different results. If this seems to be a problem or
locations are not correct, we will need to work with you to investigate further.
8. When will ULAKBIM databases be ready in SUMMON?
- A legal agreement has been sent to ULAKBIM and is waiting for signature by them
When content is indexed in Summon varies by publisher and provider. Serials Solutions strives to get
all content in Summon as soon as possible, but content must be mapped to our schema for indexing.
The speed at which new content providers get indexed is dependent on the quality and format of the
metadata we receive from the vendor/publisher. Serials Solutions puts all of our metadata through an
exhaustive normalization, correction and de-duplication process before it is every indexed. We cannot
comment on how fast the new content will be in Summon until we have seen what the
vendor/publisher provides to us. We can update you when we know more.
Summon Beta and feedback/ issues raised
Date: 29th August 2010
9. Ebscohost’s non journal content list attached. This list includes 34028 titles in it. Does Summon cover these
titles? If yes, which ones?
As you will see below and in the attached documents, we have attempted to answer this question in several ways.
Serials Solutions does not index content on a per-database level or per-content vendor, nor do users who use a
discovery service search across content in this way. As such we are very thorough and careful when providing
content comparisons. Serials Solutions performs content analysis using different methodologies and then provides
this data to the library so that the library can make a complete assessment of coverage levels in our service –
especially in comparison to the library’s actual holdings as opposed to a vendor’s title list.
First, please note that we have provided a complete coverage analysis of IYTE holdings information as managed in
the Serials Solutions Client Center. It is critical to weigh this question in the context of how much of your library’s
collection as whole is searchable in Summon and how much is searchable in Summon that goes far beyond what
EBSCOhost is capable of searching.
A Summary of these results is below, with more details in the attached documents.
Serials Solutions entire collection title level analysis
We did an assessment of the 47,291 titles we track for you in the Serials Solutions Client Center of which 36,654
items are journal titles with ISSN or eISSN numbers. There were 23,703 unique ISSN that we analyzed after de
duplication removed 12,951 records. The de-duplication suggests that there is some overlap in the collection and
perhaps some money that can be saved by the library with further overlap analysis.
Summon Beta and feedback/ issues raised
Date: 29th August 2010
Of the titles analyzed with active ISSNs, only 2,265 items are not yet covered in Summon. And of these titles not yet
in Summon, only 714 titles are peer-reviewed sources. A file representing the titles not currently in Summon is
attached for your review. No matter how you interpret these numbers, Summon covers more than 91-95% of your
journal collection.
In addition, there were just over 10,600 titles without ISSNs that will require further analysis. Of these titles, we can
be assured that at least 3,357 titles are fully covered in Summon based on our content partner relationships. From
the remaining 7,200 titles without ISSNs we will likely have partial coverage of about 1,500 titles. The
Remaining titles without ISSN consist of over 5,700 titles from Business Source Complete which are largely individual
Company reports and SWOT analyses.
Spot analysis of EBSCO provided list
We have also analyzed the 34,000+ title list of “non-journal” content provided by EBSCO and can verify that
Summon does cover some, but not all of this content. The numbers below should be taken into context with the full
holdings coverage analysis data provided above.
Of the titles provided, we did note that there were 2,157 items with ISSNs. Of these items only 326 items are not yet
in Summon and only 8 of these are peer-reviewed. If desired we can provide a file indicating which of these titles
is/is not covered.
The remaining 31,866 non-journal titles consist of roughly 18,096 items with no ISSN/ISBN numbers and 13,772
“books” with ISBN numbers. The vast majority of the 18,096 non-ISBN content are Industry Reports and SWOT
Analyses from Datamonitor PLC (8,440 items) and ICON Group International (3,933 items). Of the 13,772 “book”
items there are 8,896 World Outlook Reports from ICON International, Inc. We expect to have full or partial coverage
of about 1,059 of the remaining book items based on our content partner agreements, however further analysis of
these titles would be needed.
Summon Beta and feedback/ issues raised
Date: 29th August 2010
10. Ebscohost indexes 68284 fultext and bibliographic records in the databases.
- It is not clear what exactly the question or concern is here regarding EBSCOHost. EBSCOhost content only makes up
approximately 50% of journal content that IYTE subscribes to. Still, Summon indexes 85-95% of this EBSCO
content plus the majority of the rest of the content that IYTE subscribes to from other sources. As EBSCO is
merely an aggregator, not a publisher, the EBSCO content in Summon comes directly from publishers or other
aggregator sources.
Summon has pre-indexed almost 500,000,000 items. The Summon index represents material from dozens of content
types, from over 6,800 publishers. Serials Solutions works directly with publishers to index their content in
Summon and is not reliant on working with content aggregators like EBSCO. The vast majority of article content
in Summon is indexed in full-text. The index also includes vast amounts of Open Access content and digital
collections from other libraries which IYTE Library could make discoverable for its users.
The Summon service searches across this full body of indexed content without regard to the source, publisher or
vendor of the content. It returns a set of relevance ranked results that are scoped for your users based on the
holdings information we have about your the library’s collection. If users try to access the full content of an article,
the library’s link resolver will point them to the database or databases where your users have access to this material
(ie. EBSCO databases).
Please see the attached “How Summon works overview document” for more information and a simplified
explanation of how Summon works and what is represented in our index.
If you are referring to what EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) has pre-indexed, this is nowhere near the scale of what
Summon is doing. EDS returns pre indexed results from EBSCO databases, but then relies on federated search
technology (EBSCO Integrated Search) for results from other resources. This hybrid model has severe limitations for
the user in terms of user experience and access to content. Once a user attempts to integrate results outside of
EBSCO, they can only get 30 results at a time for the federated resources + a mere 150 EBSCOhost results. This is not
the level of results you would expect from a true web-scale discovery service.
Summon Beta and feedback/ issues raised
Date: 29th August 2010
11. In the Summon, maximum supported page number is 20. We can't see after than.
Summon is designed to meet the needs and expecatations of most users. As it is not practical or typical user
behavior to scroll through 20 pages of results, we have set this functionality to a maximum of 20. This could possibly
be changed in the future, but with over 120 customers worldwide, no one has yet to think this is an issue. Summon
is designed to provide more granular and intuitive facets and limiters than any other discovery solution. The vast
majority of users never scrolls past the first page of results because the facets, limiters and refine search options
allow them to zoom in on relevant results for their query. Users tend to refine searches before scrolling through all
of the different pages of results.
12. The number of total search results change according to the first page, the last page, sort by date newest, sort
by date oldest, results per page 25 or 50 etc.
This is a known issue that is related to one step of our deduplication process. It is something that will be corrected
soon and is a little more complicated than one would think. As an example, notice how Google handles results
counts. They never provide an exact number, they just say “about 4,600,000 results.”
http://www.google.com/#hl=en&q=philosophy
Focus Group for SUMMON and EDS
1.
The response time for queries (SUMMON + EDS - )
2.
To show the number of contained materials by category for search results (SUMMON + EDS - )
3.
To view of the contents without losing search results (SUMMON + EDS + / But the content can be opened
in a new page in the SUMMON also)
4.
Showing the number of material contained in the filter according to Search filtering options (SUMMON +
EDS - )
5.
Ease of use, the option to “Add to Folder” (SUMMON + EDS - )
6.
Ease of transaction not to send the user to a new page (SUMMON + EDS - )
7.
User assistance about the use of the site – Help menu (SUMMON + EDS + / EDS is better than SUMMON)
8.
Close to achieving a goal sought – Relevancy (SUMMON + EDS - )
9.
Page design (SUMMON is orderly. EDS is dispersed)
SURVEY FOR SUMMON
Totaly 26 answer
1.
While researching, which source do you start the first?
a) Google (21 - Person)
b) The Library Web Site (4 - Person)
c) SUMMON
(No answer : 1 - Person)
2.
Where do you start your research on the library web site?
a) Databases page (12 - Person)
b) IYTE Cat (9 - Person)
c) SUMMON (1 - Person)
d) E-Journals (1 - Person)
(No answer : 3 - Person)
3.
Do you have information about SUMMON?
a) Yes (5 - Person)
b) No (21 - Person)
4.
Do you use SUMMON?
a) Yes (5 - Person)
b) No (21 - Person)
If yes, please continue…
SURVEY FOR SUMMON
5. What is the frequency of your use of SUMMON?
a) My all searches (1 - Person)
b) Frequently (1 - Person)
c) Occasionally (3 - Person)
6.
What do you think about the interface of SUMMON?
a) Excellent (1 - Person)
b) Good (4 - Person)
c) Bad
d) Very bad
7.
Do you get the information you need, while researching on the SUMMON?
a) Generaly (4 - Person)
b) Occasionally (1 - Person)
c) Never
8.
Do you use the refine and limit options on the SUMMON search results screen?
a) Yes (4 - Person)
b) No (1 - Person)
SURVEY FOR SUMMON
9.
10.
11.
Do you need training for SUMMON?
a) Yes (2 – Person)
b) No (3 – Person)
What is your general ideas and suggestions about SUMMON?
-Easy to use (Only 1 answer)
What is your special name suggestion for SUMMON?
-LibFind (Only 1 answer)
USAGE (January)
USAGE (February)
USAGE (March)
USAGE (April)
USAGE (May)
Top Queries (May)
FUTURE PLANS
After the results of the survey, we realized that we have to create more
awareness about the SUMMON.
Our plans for this :
-
To announce a contest-winner for the most interesting & creative name
for SUMMON.
-
We’ll enamble the summon search box in new designed library web site.
-
We’ll place the summon search box in the databases web page.