The MU Libraries have recently purchased the unified search tool Summon from Serials Solutions, a division of ProQuest. The campus Information Technology Committee approved the purchase from student technology fees, so no library acquisitions money was used. The need for a new search tool became apparent after the somewhat unsuccessful experiment with federated searching a few years ago, and the recommendation for Summon came from the task force on new discovery tools last year. Many library staff participated in the demonstrations of new discovery tools last fall and Summon this past June. Summon does its searching through a unified index the vendor builds, rather than going into each tool and using the tool’s indexes. This provides fast results in one display with relevancy ranking based on what the user types into the single, Google-like search box.
Summon set up has already begun, and a test installation should be available to staff by the middle of November. Some goals for the Summon product are:
- To help users find information in library databases & catalogs when they’re not sure where to look.
- To search for very specific information across a wide range of library resources and databases.
- Geared toward those who want to identify a few items on a topic.
- To facilitate access to underutilized resources of which users aren’t aware.
- To adopt/explore/test option that gives users one place to begin their research.
- Users will find at least 3 appropriate results on the first two pages of SUMMON results.
- To provide better results than the free search results found by Google, Google Scholar, and Worldcat Local.
For more information contact Ann Riley at 2-1685.