Summon @ LBSU

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 …

Any questions?

Email:[email protected]@lsbu.ac.uk

[email protected]