Serials Solutions, a business unit of ProQuest, US, has signed new beta development partners and new content providers to its Summon unified discovery service. University of Sydney and University of Liverpool join Dartmouth College and Oklahoma State University as beta development sites for the new service. New content will be contributed from the American Psychological Association (APA) and Alexander Street Press, both acclaimed sources of scholarly journal content. The new beta site and content additions are part of the Summon service's aggressive growth and development program in preparation for its launch mid-year.
Announced in January, the Summon service addresses what research shows is a fundamental barrier between libraries and users: a simple, obvious starting point for searches. The service is being developed in close cooperation with library beta partners, with a goal of not only bringing the researcher back to the library, but providing a channel for greater return on the library's content investment.
The participation of content providers is also vital component of the service's development. The Summon service surpasses federated search in favour of a single search against pre-harvested content enabling fast results, in true relevancy-ranked order. With lead participants ProQuest and Gale, the Summon service's list of contributors has expanded dramatically in two months. The journals of APA and Alexander Street Press are significant scholarly scientific and humanities contributions that join the works of Springer, Taylor & Francis, SAGE Publications, and other prestigious organizations.
