Summon help

Phrase searching | Field searching | Boolean operators | Proximity operators | Wildcards | Browser support

   

A default search in Summon is a keyword search against the items we have local access to: all the records in Addison, the library catalog, articles from journals to which we subscribe, content from participating databases to which we subscribe, and freely available content such as from open access journals or government websites.

A simple search of one or two words will return over a million results: use phrase searching, field searching, and facets to refine your search and return fewer results.

Use the Include results from outside your library's collection option to include records from other libraries's catalogs, articles from journals to which we don't have subscriptions, and records from databases to which we don't subscribe. You can request most of these items via interlibrary loan.

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. To expand the results set, use the OR operator "microcircuits OR nanocircuits" will return items that contain either term.

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".

Scholarly publications limit

When you turn on the Limit to articles from scholarly publications, including peer-review option, you will limit your search results to articles from peer-reviewed journals. (Note that books from academic and university publishers are often considered "scholarly," but this option eliminates all books from your results.) This option uses data from UlrichsWeb - Ulrich's Periodical Directory , which identifies scholarly and peer-reviewed journals, and is our preferred source of this information when you need to manually verify a journal or article citation as being scholarly.

Facets

Summon uses a variety of facets to limit and refine search results, much like Amazon and database providers like ESBCOhost. Each time you turn a facet on or off, your search is repeated and you'll see a new set of results. Most facets will reduce the number of search results (Include results from outside your library's collection will always increase the number of results.) Use the more link beneath a set of facets to see additional choices (these are typically listed in order of the number of results) and to use an exclude facetoption in addition to the default includeoption. See our Facets page for details on each facet set.

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+