Summon
Summon is a web-scale discovery service offered by Serials Solutions since 2009 . It is a uniform search interface for the local and electronic, web-wide resources of a library . The index of the external metadata that is searched for this is contained in the Summon product. The data from your own library are integrated. A link resolver provides access to electronic full texts. Summon can thus be used as a library catalog for a library. Serials Solutions has specialized in ERAMS (E-Resource Access and Management Service) since 2000 and offers libraries access management and search services for electronic content as a service provider.
target group
The target group of Summon are primarily academic libraries who want to give their users easy access to both local, physically available and worldwide electronic resources without researching the nature of these resources (books, [electronic] journals, [ electronic] essays, documents, videos, photos, databases, etc.).
Development history
Serials Solutions was founded in 1999 by brothers Steve, Mike and Peter McCracken in Seattle , USA . Their goal was to greatly improve electronic library catalogs in order to be able to use the resources of a library sustainably. Serials Solutions was acquired by ProQuest in 2004 and has been part of the Cambridge Information Group since 2007 , merging with Cambridge Scientific Abstracts to form ProQuest CSA . As a result, Serials Solutions also merged with the publishing company of the dominant journal indexing organ Ulrich's Periodicals Directory .
Serials Solutions now offers bibliographical reference systems (Ulrich's), search interfaces for library resources ( AquaBrowser ), access and indexing systems for all library resources ( Serials Solution 360 ) and virtual search interfaces ( WebFeat ).
Summon was introduced in 2009 and is currently still in beta . It combines many of the services already offered by Serials Solutions and for the first time also includes the provision of metadata - the research in the library's metadata is expanded by an index belonging to Summon, which includes extensive references from publishers and other providers. So Summon is not a meta-catalog ; a virtual search is no longer necessary. Advantage: Your own index, on which a search engine is set up, increases the research speed and expands the search options. Disadvantage: It is time-consuming to prepare the data, which is often in heterogeneous formats, to load it into the index and to update it regularly.
Content
The index built by Summon contains metadata from third-party providers of electronic full texts (e.g. from publishers such as Springer or Sage ), but also references from bibliographic databases such as MLA or LexisNexis . According to the company's own information, there are currently over 400 million item lists from over 50,000 magazines. The summon index also contains entries from the electronic full texts.
Depending on the application, the metadata of the library used is also added; This can also include references from institutional repositories ( for example, the Sydney eScholarship repository has been integrated into the library of the University of Sydney , a beta user of Summon ). Whether further open access literature from others, e.g. B. professional, repositories is proven is not known.
Range of functions
The Summon search interface is characterized by minimalism: The entry into the simple search is guaranteed by a single search field that can be used to find books, articles from print journals or electronic full texts without requiring detailed knowledge of the library holdings. Since all metadata is in its own index ("pre-indexed"), the time for a search query is very fast (approx. 3 s with a hit number of 135,000).
In addition to the usual search options such as phrase searches or the use of Boolean operators , there is also the search for similar search terms, the consideration of the distance between different search terms ( proximity ) and various truncation and masking functions . Numerous drill-down , narrowing and filtering options are offered through which the number of hits can be subsequently refined and changed (e.g. according to "content type", "subject term" or "language"). In addition, results can be added beyond the library inventory. There are also "Did you mean?" Suggestions if the number of hits is low.
The list of results is sorted by relevance by default , but can also be sorted by date. It is possible to influence the relevance ranking: If several words are entered, the more important word can be marked. The algorithm that is used for ranking is to be further improved in cooperation with library customers. The search results can also be exported to reference management programs.
The database of Serial Solutions does not contain any information about the path / link through which a specific user can ultimately access the document found. For this, a local is OpenURL - Resolver addressed (another offer from Serials Solutions).
technical basics
Nothing has been published about the search engine software and the ranking algorithm that Summon uses. The decisive difference to the usual meta-catalogs and library portals is that it is not a virtual search across several different catalogs, but that all proven resources are in a common index. In addition, there are no search results; the quality of Summon in the future will therefore depend on the extent to which the index is expanded and kept up to date.
All data are stored on Serials Solutions servers, which means that there is no need for maintenance and care for the library staff. In principle, the search interface looks the same for every library, but in the future there will also be optionally configurable APIs for better integration into local offers. The Summon Diagram graphic shows how it works.
Individual evidence
- ^ MLA to Include International Bibliography in the Summon ™ Web-Scale Discovery Service. ( Memento of the original from July 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Serials Solutions press release of November 6, 2009. Accessed November 18, 2009.
- ^ LexisNexis Signs on to the Summon ™ Service. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Serials Solutions press release of July 6, 2009. Accessed November 18, 2009.
- ^ Summon content. ( Memento of the original from January 31, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Website Serials Solutions. Retrieved November 18, 2009.
- ↑ Discover Summon Beta! ( Memento of the original from November 25, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. University of Sydney website. Retrieved November 18, 2009.
- ↑ Josh Hadro: Serials Solutions Announces Summon, a New Unified Discovery Interface. ( Memento of the original from June 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Library Journal January 20, 2009. Retrieved November 18, 2009.
