Search Query Help

Phrase Searching

Summon™ allows for phrase searching with the use of “ ”. The query “teacher education” will find results with that phrase.

Searching Specific Fields

The single search box in Summon™ (basic search box or keyword search box in advanced search) will search across many fields automatically. For example, entering an ISBN, ISSN, or Call Number will bring back associated records.

You can explicitly search a field using the syntax: “field:(query).” For example, the search ISSN:(1234-5678), finds records that contain that value in the ISSN field.

Searchable fields:

• Title
• SubjectTerms
• Author
• Publisher
• PublicationTitle
• Volume
• Issue
• Language
• Notes
• ISBN
• ISSN
• DOI
• DEWEY

Boolean Operators

Summon™ offers the following Boolean operations: OR, NOT and AND. The operators must be written in ALL CAPS.

By default, all terms in a search are combined with the AND operator. To expand the results set, use the OR operator “microcircuits OR nanocircuits” will return items that contain either term.

This can be combined with quoted terms such as “teacher education” OR “educator training”.

To exclude items in Summon™, use the NOT operator or “-” character before a term. When used in the following query “animal NOT dog” the results will not include the term “dog”.

Wildcard Use in Summon

Searches within Summon™ can be performed using the wildcards “?” and “*”.

The question mark (?) will match any one character and can be used to find “Olsen” or “Olson” by searching for “Ols?n”.

The asterisk (*) will match zero or more characters within a word or at the end of a word. A search for “Ch*ter” would match “Charter”, “Character”, and “Chapter”. When used at the end of a word, such as “Temp*”, it will match all suffixes “Temptation”, “Temple” and “Temporary”.

Wildcards cannot be used as the first character of a search.

Browser Support

Summon™ supports the following browsers and phones:

• Internet Explorer 6.0+ (However it is better NOT to use this Off-Campus read here)
• Firefox 3.0+
• Safari 4.0+
• Chrome (stable version)
• iPhone 2.0+
• BlackBerry 8500+
• Android 1.0+

Once you get the Summon Results page you have a lot of opportunities to refine your search by using the FACETS found on the left hand side of the screen.

Refine your search

You also can limit by

Content Type:

which will differ according to your results, but which include journal articles, book reviews, trade publications, books/ebooks, reference sources,government publications, images, newspaper articles, market research etc.

Discipline:
You can limit by one or more disciplines to refine your search.

Publication Date:

You can use the calendar to choose the publication date OR you can type it in

then Press the Update button

Language:

Choose the language(s) you want