A Single Search Box for the Library's Resources

This provides a Google-like search experience, allowing you to use one, simple search box to discover credible and reliable library content, whether it be in print, online, or both.

Using Summon

The best time to use Summon is when you …

1. want one quick search across almost all of the library’s resources
2. you don’t know where to start with the 400+ library databases

Searching Tips

• Research is a process, you may need to try several searches to get the results you desire. Use your search results to refine your search for even better results.
• Search terms or phrases in quotes will return the most relevant results.
• Misspellings and vague searches will return less useful results.
• For in-depth or comprehensive searching, follow-up or start with one of our search by subject database pages.
• Summon will occasionally recommend subject databases to you (between the search bar and your search results).

Advantages to Summon

• Searching is fast, easy, and uses a familiar interface—it's almost like Google
• You don’t have to login into EZproxy first if you are off-campus. All results that require authentication will send you to EZproxy when you click on them.
• Search results include citations of many kinds of sources: books, journal articles, newspaper articles, conference proceedings, dissertations, photos, multimedia, and much more
• Search results can be quickly narrowed by using the facets: content type, library location, subject terms, publication date, language, and more
• Search results can be limited to scholarly or peer-reviewed sources with one click
• Searches can include materials that are not part of the ILRC’s collections, but which can easily be requested through our interlibrary loan service
• Summon interfaces closely with Get It At Liberty to identify which resources are available in full text (limiting to full text in most databases eliminates results that are available as full text from other sources)
• Summon provides a search interface optimized for smart phones
• Citations in your search results can be viewed in six commonly used citation formats (APA, AMA, MLA, Uniform, Chicago, and Harvard), exported to EndNote, emailed, and printed
• RSS feeds are automatically created for any search you run; subscribe to a feed to receive notification when new search results meet your criteria.

Searching

Phrase searching

Summon allows for phrase searching with the use of quotes. The query "local food" will find results with that phrase.

Searching specific fields

The single search box in Summon (basic search box or keyword search box in advanced search) will search across many fields automatically. For example, entering an ISBN or ISSN will bring back associated records.

You can explicitly search a field using the syntax: "field:(query)." For example, the search ISSN:(1234-5678), finds records that contain that value in the ISSN field.

Searchable fields:

• Title
• SubjectTerms
• Author
• Publisher
• PublicationTitle
• Volume
• Issue
• Language
• Notes
• ISBN
• ISSN
• DOI

Boolean operators

Summon offers the following Boolean operations: OR, NOT and AND. The operators must be written in ALL CAPS. By default, all terms in a search are combined with the AND operator.

This can be combined with quoted terms, such as "local food" OR "sustainable eating".

To exclude items in Summon, use the NOT operator or "-" character before a term. When used in the following query "animal NOT dog" the results will not include the term "dog".

Proximity operators

Use the tilde (~) character at the end of a multiple words. When used on the term local~10 food results include instances where the terms are 10 words apart or less.

Wildcards

Searches within Summon can be performed using the wildcards ? and *.

The question mark (?) will match any one character and can be used to find "Olsen" or "Olson" by searching for "Ols?n".

The asterisk (*) will match zero or more characters within a word or at the end of a word. A search for "Ch*ter" would match "Charter", "Character", and "Chapter". When used at the end of a word, such as "Temp*", it will match all suffixes "Temptation", "Temple" and "Temporary".

Wildcards cannot be used as the first character of a search.

Use the tilde (~) character at the end of a word to match similar terms. When used on the term "Lead~" it will match "Wead", "Veade", and "Tead".

Search Results

Refining

Results can be refined by using the facets on the left side of the page.

You can refine by content type, subject terms, publication date, location, and more. For example, checking off “eBook” and/or “Journal Article” under Content Type will limit the results to the items that are in that format.

At the top left, there are other ways to narrow your results. A couple of the most helpful options are:

• “Items with full text online,” which is helpful when you are off-campus or the library is closed
• “Limit to articles from scholarly publications, including peer-review,” which is helpful when you don’t want popular materials

Sorting

By default the results are listed by relevance ranking. Summon determines which results are most relevant (like Google) and places those items first.

In the top right corner of the results, there is a drop down menu which contains other options for sorting. Results can also be sorted by date – oldest items first or newest items first.

Saving

Results can be collected into a temporary folder for later perusal. When the cursor hovers over an item, an icon of a folder appears to the right of the item’s title. Clicking on the folder icon will save the item in a folder of saved results. You must email, print, or export your saved items if you wish to use them again after ending your Summon session.

The Summon screen contains a horizontal bar which is locked to the bottom of the Web browser. On the right end of the bar, there is an icon of a folder which says “Saved Items.” Once you have saved items from the results list, you can view a list of them by clicking on that folder icon. That is where you will have the option to format them in a specific citations style (APA, MLA, etc.) and email, print, or export them to a citation manager.

Browser Support

Summon supports the following browsers and phones:

• Internet Explorer 6.0+
• Firefox 3.0+
• Safari 4.0+
• Chrome 7.0+
• iPhone 2.0+
• BlackBerry 8500+
• Android 1.0+

Summon™ is a registered trademark of SerialsSolutions.