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Summon, a new discovery tool at the library, allows us to meet user expectations while
maximizing library collections.
In this session, I will explain what web-scale discovery is, talk about our new tool, Summon
and go into more detail as to how it works.
Let’s start with web-scale discovery. You’ve seen it all over the web. Amazon and Google
are two great examples. It’s a single search box that searches everything at once. So rather
than searching through separate categories or sellers on Amazon, you’re able to search
for what you’re looking for on the opening page.
How does this work for the library? Summon, the library’s new search tool, looks
at more than 200 million items that Billington Library has access to. It searches the library
catalog, databases such as ProQuest Research Library and Academic OneFile and the library’s
own digital repositories such as ScholarSpace.
You can use Summon to search and find books, articles from newpapers, magazines and scholarly
journals, images and more.
Summon is a Google-like library tool. It’s simple, powerful and credible. This is the
opening search screen for this new tool.
There are a number of benefits to using Summon. Its comprehensiveness and speed gets researchers
to the right information fast. The unbiased relevance ranking allows for true and accurate
results. And unique options and limits allow users to navigate results their own way, drilling
down to exactly what they need.
Summon is a compelling and effective starting place for novice and experienced researchers
alike. It’s also a wonderful tool for interdisciplinary research.
Summon can be used throughout all stages of the research process. From getting background
information on a topic, to finding articles, to creating citations, Summon can be used
every step of the way. Summon is also great for looking up known items. Just have the
title of an article but not the author or journal? Summon can find it!
Give Summon a try today!