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Summon @ LSBU Sue Carter Ute Manecke Mari Kermode London South Bank University 10 th November 2015
Summon @ LSBU
Sue Carter Ute Manecke
Mari Kermode
London South Bank University10th November 2015
Introduction
• Part 1: Choice and Implementation• Part 2: Testing and student training• Part 3: The Serials Perspective
Part I: Choice and Implementation
Background
• LSBU needed to improve the user search experience for students and staff.
• Federated search tools were passé – slow return of results and clunky user front-ends
• LSBU had Encore which first came on the market in 2006• BUT Encore alone was insufficient to meet the needs of
LSBU’s students and staff – no article level index.
Encore at LSBUEncore’s single search box, search facets, and relevancy ranking option can be seen here.
LSBU’s requirements for a library discovery tool
• A fresh approach was needed for a library discovery tool at LSBU.
• LSBU’s requirements were:• First-class search engine with a single-search box• Article-level index based on a central index• One-stop shop for access to e-resources and the ability to
harvest metadata from LSBU’s planned future repository.• Compatibility with LSBU’s library management system
Index-based Discovery Tools
Index-based discovery tools had become popular in the HE sector at this time (2013).
Two providers were invited to LSBU to give a demonstration:
• Ebsco Discovery Service from Ebsco • Summon from Proquest
Decision Time
• Both Ebsco and Proquest gave good demonstrations.• Testing – various teams within the Perry Library conducted
standard searches to compare the two products.• Search terms such as King Lear and articles on hotel
management in Turkey were looked for.• Both systems performed well in test searches.• Overall it was felt that Summon was more user-friendly and
had a clearer front-end than Ebsco.• Summon was selected.
Implementation Overview
• Labour-intensive but overall reasonably straightforward
• Named technical support contact during the implementation phase
• Proquest responded quickly to queries and problems
• Number of implementation tasks which need to be carried out
• Customisation and tailored search
Implementation Tasks …1
• ProQuest asked for basic information and configuration data
such as:• How many records will you initially upload to Summon – it
is initially necessary to send a full copy of your local catalogue metadata in MARC21 format to Summon
• Which MARC field in your bib records contains the unique identifier
• Information about the ftp upload process to get records into Summon
Implementation Tasks …2
• Next major task was filling out the content type mapping and MARC mapping spreadsheets
• Fields from our library management system needed to be mapped to the Summon index and content types
• Content type (Summon facets) have a default MARC field mapping
Implementation Tasks …3
• For both the content type and MARC field mapping, a library can choose to exclude a content type from mapping or to add additional mapping
• Complex and time-consuming • You may need to do some tidying up of your
catalogue records as a result of this process, be warned!
Implementation Tasks …4 Summon FTP Process
• Need to send an initial upload of catalogue records to Proquest
• Libraries need to set up an ongoing upload process • At the moment, fortnightly updates• A full copy of our catalogue records are sent
quarterly to Proquest for Summon, to ensure consistency.
Summon Customisation
• Best Bets – but over to Mari on this one• Database Recommender turned off• Two search boxes on student portal MyLSBU. A new
Summon/tailored journal articles box alongside our usual library catalogue.
• Summon tailored search widget was not at that time SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) compliant.
Summon Tailored Search …1
• Very concerned that we would not be able to use the Summon tailored search widget
• Worked with Proquest and with our MyLSBU developers to use a vanilla version of Summon which could be used with MyLSBU
• After thorough testing, working with LSBU ICT, we were able to use Summon with MyLSBU and go-live at the same time as the student portal launched.
• However at that time the tailored search widget was still not SSL compliant – we had to have the full Summon with no tailored search.
Summon Tailored Search …2
• We decided to call our Summon search box “Find Journal Articles and More” anyway, as Summon is the best way to find articles even without a tailored search.
• This story has a happy ending.• The Summon tailored search widget is now SSL
compliant.• So in the near future we can finally have our tailored
article search in the library MyLSBU pages.
Summon search in MyLSBU
Summon is behind the right hand search box here
Part II:Testing and student training
Summon testing• Testing in the ALD team in the summer of
2014• Worked through exercises and focused on:
• searching different types of resources, i.e. books, journals, journal articles, DVDs etc.
• by title or by keywords• filtering searches• exporting some results
Summon testing• We also thought about
• its name• default search settings• order of filtering options
Summon testing
Feedback after testing: • Many issues!
• Catalogue? Summon? Databases?
• Most of these issues were resolved
Student training• First few weeks before it went on the student
portal: • Some of us showed new students the Summon link and
demonstrated a search • From November 2014 – August 2015: partly
demonstrated on the student portal• From September 2015 for the new academic year:
Summon was strategically introduced in inductions and sometimes in other training sessions.
Student training• Target audience
• Mainly first-year undergraduates and foundation students
• When to use it• As an initial keyword search for journal articles to see
how much there is on a particular subject or topic• If used, it should normally be followed on by a specific
database search. • For citation searching, i.e. to find a particular item.
Student training• Content usually demonstrated
• Main search box• Results display • Main filtering options on the left hand side
• Content sometimes demonstrated • advanced search settings
• Content occasionally demonstrated• Creating an account and saving search results
Advantage of Summon
Benefit for users:• Ease of use: quick and simple way of
finding articles
The Library catalogueChoosing a database
Looking through the archive
Finding the issue
THE ARTICLE!
Finding a specific journal articleThe old way:
Find journal articles or more Summon
THE ARTICLE!
Finding a journal articleThe new Summon way:
Disadvantages of Summon
• Summon not equally useful for searches in different disciplines
• Filtering to full text • “Find journal articles and more”!
Part III:The Serials Perspective
My Role• Collate feedback (still ongoing!) to create ‘big
picture’ of LSBU user experience with Summon• Identify whether concerns need support from
the Systems team or from the Serials team• (The above point isn’t always obvious to our
users!)• Create Best Bet entries for databases
• High uptake of Summon! • Several e-journal access queries coming via
Summon discovery route• Queries coming from both LSBU students & staff• Information provided by ProQuest helped to
clarify queries from library staff “in-house”
The Good
• Skewed search results in Summon vs results specific databases for identical searches
• Trying to make certain features do something they’re not designed to do
The Not so Good
Best Bet Results
• Forced to select one database for each subject area, not great for discovery!
• Testing problems to differentiate between a Summon problem and an e-resource problem
• Created “ticket” spreadsheet to assist with this….
Currently
• Move to a truly tailored article search• Make greater use of statistics to inform
Summon settings• Happy with Summon, but continue to keep
abreast of other discovery tools to ensure that Summon is the best fit for LSBU
Summon Future …
