Summon:
Web-scale discovery
Agenda
• Web-scale Discovery Defined
• How Summon Works
• Summon User Experience (live demonstration)
• Additional Resources
What is web-scale discovery?
• It’s everywhere… a single search box, querying a
single index…
• … regardless of format, source, publisher, etc.
Now libraries, too, can meet this user
expectation
Why are Many Users Going Elsewhere for
Research?
Easiest place to start research process:
Summon solves the problem
• Enhances library as relevant online place for
discovery
• Easiest place to start the research process
Summon is not just for novice users
“An excellent resource not only for students
who need a quick way to search, but also for
scholars with complex multidisciplinary topics.
Summon is terrific at finding articles across
seemingly unrelated disciplines...”
– Instructional Design and Technology Librarian,
University of North Carolina
“Great in supporting my interdisciplinary
research... Summon saves me time…”
– Professor, North Carolina State University
II. How Summon works
The Summon Index
950 million-plus citations and/or full text
from over 7,000 publishers, aggregators, A&I sources,
library catalogs, institutional repositories, LibGuides
Number of records:
Average Catalog
PubMed
Summon
Library of Congress
What’s in a library’s Summon?
Library’s
Institutional
Repositories
Library’s
Bibliographic
Records from
ILS Catalog
Relevant
Open Access
content
Critical Core
of My
Library’s
Electronic
Holdings
My
Library’s
Summon
Library’s
LibGuides
Coverage Lists on serialssolutions.com
Participating Publishers
Serials Titles
Key Databases & Packages
http://www.serialssolutions.com/en/services/summon/content-and-coverage
Provider records matched and merged into
master Summon record
Authoritative peer
review information
DOI’s from
CrossRef
Subject terms
preserved
Metadata, abstract
and full text
joined together
master
Summon
record
eBook and print
content matching
How does Summon do relevancy ranking?
• True relevance ranking
User Query
across all content
User Query
• Dynamic Ranking
• Term Frequency
• Field Weighting
Static
Ranking
Dynamic
Ranking
Relevance
Ranked
Results
List
• Term Stemming
• Stop Word Processing
• Static Ranking
• Content Type
• Publication Date
• Scholarly/Peer Review
Recommendations / Best Bets
• Highlight Local Collections
• Citation Counts
Accessing items
• Direct linking
• Link directly to some subscription resources.
• Link directly to client catalog records
• No URL in record: link to the OPAC
• URL in record: link to the eBook or eJournal
• OpenURL (link resolver) linking
• When direct linking is not available.
• Citation metadata is passed to full text provider.
III. Summon User Experience
Live Demonstration
• Single search box
• Search results
• Narrowed results – via filters, facets, advanced
search, and more
• Access to items – direct linking, OpenURL linking
• Working with results – Saved Items folder, RSS
• Discovery of additional content – other local
collections (yours as well as other libraries),
citation counts (Web of Science authenticated
users)
IV. Additional Resources
Hearing from other libraries using Summon
• Summon listserv
• Libraries using Summon: over 500 in more than 40
countries
• Monthly “Question & Answer” online session
• Information Literacy in the Age of Web-Scale
Discovery
• Recordings of seven library webinars, late Sep through
early Nov 2012
• Summon case studies
• Summon User Guide
• Accessing documentation requires Serials Solutions
account
Thanks for participating!
Corrine Kuhl
Sales Engineer
corrine.kuhl@
serialssolutions.com
toll-free U.S. & Canada:
+1-866-400-7116