Washington & Jefferson College

Summon comes to W&J

The U. Grant Miller Library is proud to unveil Summon, a Google-like search with access to both subscription-based and publicly available materials, including articles, books, and other scholarly resources. This new discovery service provides researchers the flexibility of casting a wide net or searching for a specific article in a single unified interface. Summon connects researchers directly to the source, regardless of origin. So, a single search provides results from multiple databases, including the Library's catalog and public sites, like Google-scholar, in a matter of seconds.

Because Summon is a powerful tool, the College librarians want to remind researchers that the Geotom catalog is still the most efficient option for title-based searching. As Alexis Rittenberger explained, "Summon is designed to provide a comprehensive list of resources available to our community. Although it can provide researchers with a single title when queried, it will also provide much more." Thanks to this new discovery service researchers can use one search box to identify credible and reliable library content without formulating complex search strategies or visiting multiple sites.