Can’t find a book in Summon? Try:  read more »

Summon doesn’t index databases, it directly indexes publications (specific journals, newspapers and other serials). That publication data can come from any number of places: direct from the publisher, or from an intermediate database.

That said, we don’t know exactly what the overlap is between Summon’s content and the content found in specialized research databases (JSTOR, Web of Science, Medline, ERIC). In some cases it might be close to 100%, in others, 50-75%.

We’d like to hear about your experiences using Summon (technical glitches, suggestions).  We have two feedback options:  read more »

You can quickly check to see if a journal’s articles are being indexed by Summon; here's how:  read more »

Summon and Google Scholar are both search engines that let you quickly search across a massive index of scholarly information.

Summon and Google Scholar search different bodies of scholarly content. There is overlap, but there is content findable in Summon but not Google Scholar, and vice-versa.  The two search engines perform relevance ranking in very different ways.

Some features unique to Summon:  read more »

The QCAT Library Catalogue is the main inventory of books, journal titles (print and online), media, and other documents held in the Queen’s University Library collection.   It contains over 2.3 million records.

Summon is a search engine that searches every record in QCAT, plus 100+ million scholarly articles and online records.  It was implemented in 2010.  read more »

Summon's sophisticated relevance ranking algorithm is a 'trade secret' of the software developers, so we are unable to explain exactly how it works.  However, it gives priority to "exact title" matches on your search keywords.   read more »

There are many different reasons why you might see the "This item is not available online" message:

• There is an error in the citation.
• There is no full-text version of the item available online.
• Queen's Library does not have a subscription to the online version of the journal in question.
• In the case of a very recent article, the text may not yet be loaded on the publisher's website.

Here are some alternate paths to the full-text:  read more »

When using RefWorks with Summon from off-campus, first login from off-campus using the web proxy.

More information about exporting to RefWorks from Summon.

Summon is a search engine that provides credible, relevance ranked results from the library’s online and print collections in a single search.  read more »

Summon contains a massive collection of books, scholarly journal articles, newspaper articles, e-books, theses and dissertations, conference proceedings, and numerous academic databases. It contains everything found in the traditional QCAT Library Catalogue, plus information usually found in research databases.  read more »

Searches in Summon often yield an overwhelmingly large number of results.  Here are some mechanisms for doing precise searching in Summon:

A) Try Phrase Searching

Summon allows for phrase searching with the use of “ ”. The query “teacher education” will find results with that phrase.

B) Try the Advanced Search  read more »

In Summer 2010 the Library implemented a new search system (Summon), upgraded the QCAT Library Catalogue, and changed our library homepage. 

On the pre-Summer 2010 library homepage, we had 2 major search areas:  read more »

Our decision to use Summon was driven in large part by user feedback indicating the need for a search tool that is able to go beyond the contents of the QCAT Library Catalogue and include scholarly articles as well.  read more »

Summon is an example of “software as a service”; the Library has a license with Serials Solutions to provide the Summon index for our Library’s collection. In this sense, it is more similar to our various article databases (e.g. Web of Science) than it is to the QCAT Library Catalogue system (a locally-hosted software system that experiences major but infrequent upgrades).  read more »