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Facets

Summon uses facets to modify your search results; typically applying a facet reduces the number of results, though the Add results beyond your library's collection facet will always increase the results. Many facets can be applied initially on the Advanced Search screen, but they are usually applied after performing an initial search. Here are details about each facet, grouped and ordered by the sets as they appear on the search results screen.

Refine your search

This initial set of facets are the most commonly used.

Items with full text online

This facet uses data that also drives our Get VText screens to determine what content is actually available online. Unlike a full-text limiting option in most other databases that limit only to full-text content from that database's provider, Summon's option knows about our full-text content from over 90% of our providers. We often recommend avoiding the full-text limiters in databases, because when the full-text content is not available from that database's provider, clicking the Get VText button will identify when full text is available from another provider. That process happens in the background in Summon, so this limiter is usually very accurate.

Limit to articles from scholarly publications, including peer-review

When you turn on the Limit to articles from scholarly publications, including peer-review option, you will limit your search results to articles from peer-reviewed journals and other publications that are considered scholarly, even though their editorial process does not involve peer review. (Note that books from academic and university publishers are often considered "scholarly," but this option eliminates all books from your results.) This option uses data from UlrichsWeb - Ulrich's Periodical Directory , which identifies scholarly and peer-reviewed journals, and is our preferred source of this information when you need to manually verify a journal or article citation as being scholarly.

Limit to articles from peer-reviewed publications

This is a more refined version of the facet above, but limits your search results only to articles from peer-reviewed journals. This option uses data from UlrichsWeb - Ulrich's Periodical Directory , which identifies peer-reviewed journals.

Exclude newspaper articles

Summon indexes content from thousands of newspapers from around the world. Simple searches can return hundreds of thousands of newspaper articles, which may not suit your research needs. Turn on the option to eliminate those results.

Items in the library catalog

This facet will limit to records from Addison, the library catalog. (You can achive the same results by turning on all the options under the Library Location set of facets.) You can use this facet to search the library catalog, but also use the features of Summon, especially he Content Type and Subject Terms facets.

Add results beyond your library's collection

A default search in Summon is a keyword search against the items we have local access to: all the records in Addison, the library catalog, articles from journals to which we subscribe, content from participating databases to which we subscribe, and freely available content such as from open access journals or government websites.

Use the Include results from outside your library's collection facet to include records from other libraries's catalogs, articles from journals to which we don't have subscriptions, and records from databases to which we don't subscribe. You can request most of these items via interlibrary loan. Just click the title link to generate a Get VText screen. If there are no links in Steps 1 or 2 for the content, the link for ILLiad in Step 3 will automatically fill in the request form for you.

Content type

There are over two dozen content types in Summon. These content types don't match exactly with the material types available through Addison, though we have mapped many equivalents for our Addison records in Summon. Checking off multiple content types will show all records that match; selecting multiple options will increase your search results. Use the more...link to see additional content types and to chose to exclude content types in addition to including them.

If you turn on the Book content type, four additional facet sets will appear: Author, Genre, Region, and Time Period.

Author

The Author facet reveals authors from our Addison records (plus records from other library catalogs, if you've included them). It does not include authors of articles or conference papers.

Genre

The Genre facet displays a genre as identified in a specific Subject Heading field from our Addison records (plus records from other library catalogs, if you've included them). Many catalog records include no genre, so turning on one of these facets will eliminate all of those results.

Region

The Region facet displays a region as identified in specific sub-fields of Subject Headings from our Addison records (plus records from other library catalogs, if you've included them). Many catalog records include no region data, so turning on one of these facets will eliminate those results.

Time period

The Time Period facet displays a time period as identified in specific sub-fields of Subject Headings from our Addison records (plus records from other library catalogs, if you've included them). Many catalog records include no time period data, so turning on one of these facets will eliminate those results.

Subject terms

The Subject Terms facet displays subject headings or descriptors as identified by the content provider. For our Addison records, these would include both Library of Congress subject headings and MeSH (medical subject headings). Articles from journal publishers might use Library of Congress subject headings, their own controlled vocabulary (like the ERIC thesaurus) or just keywords provided by the author. Because this facet offers a mashup of different terms, it's not as exact as a subject search in the catalog or a subject/descriptor search in a database. Nevertheless, the Subject Terms facet set is an excellent way to quickly reduce the number of search results.

Checking off multiple subject facets will limit to results will all the selected facets (acting like the AND boolean operator, reducing the number of results).

To combine multiple subject terms with OR, use the more... link beneath the facets. When you select multiple terms in the popup window, you'll see they are OR'd together, increasing the number of results. Once you've made some selections, if you use the more link again, the next set of selections are also OR'd together, and that new set is AND'd with your previous selection. This is a very powerful way to combine subjects.

If you need to clear subject facet selections, use the Any facet at the top of the list.

Library location

This facet limits your search results to records from Addison, the library catalog. You can limit to items from a specific library (including our off-campus storage facility) or items from the catalog that are only available online (though the Items with full text online facet is probably an easier way to see those).

Publication date

Use this facet to limit to specific publication date ranges, for instance when you need recently published material or material published contemporaneously with an event you are researching. This facet uses data from the content providers, so if a record in Summon does not include any publication date data, using this facet will eliminate those results.

You can either drag the sliders to adjust the date range, or manually enter dates (including just years).

Unlike Addison, these date ranges are inclusive. Choose to limit to dates 2000 to 2003 includes items published in all of those years. (Addison date limiting is exclusive; limiting to that same date range in Addison would only show items published in 2001 and 2002.)

Language

Use this facet to limit to material published in specific languages. This facet uses data from the content providers, so if a record in Summon does not include any language date coding, using this facet will eliminate those results. This facet is most useful when you are retrieving many results in non-English languages. Use the more... link beneath the facet and choose to Exclude those other languages so that you view both English-language coded items and items with no language code.



 

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