Serials Solutions, a US-based provider of tools and services for libraries, has announced that the Columbia University Libraries (CUL) have chosen to adopt its Summon web-scale discovery service. The move is projected to address what studies have shown is a fundamental barrier between libraries and users: the lack of an easy and fast starting point for research.
CUL reportedly selected the discovery service after careful consideration of many different tools as well as a close examination of the user experience. In 2009, CUL conducted a survey about the quality of its library resources, among other service quality factors. The survey showed that faculty and graduate student users perceived CUL's e-resources as lacking and not easy to navigate.
Summon claims to offer a comprehensive single unified index that enables sub-second searches. Its service is seen to go beyond federated search and leap-frogs next-generation catalogues by providing one search box, one results screen and access to the breadth of library content. Results from a Summon search are supposedly content neutral, based only on relevancy and never impacted by its provider's technological expertise.
The service is claimed to enable a familiar web-searching experience of the full breadth of content found in library collections - from books and videos to e-resources such as articles. It aims to bring researchers back to library content and resources by providing a premiere and easy-to-use discovery tool. Librarians are claimed to like the service's ability to transform their institution's search experience, and to have found it easy to set up and integrate into their current library operations.
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