Several months ago, I wrote about Summon, Serials Solutions “Unified Search Interface”.
Dartmouth College has a beta version that is open to the public. Try it here.
Let me know what you think.
[Thanks Larry!]
Try Summon from Dartmouth
April 20, 2009
EBSCO's Discovery Layer
Library Journal announced that EBSCOHost is releasing a discovery layer interface as a part of their Integrated Search platform. Available at the end of 2009, it will be based on pre-indexed metadata, and will have include WorldCat records from OCLC.
To clarify, this is different from federated search. A federated search sends searches out from a search screen, often resulting in long wait for results from various databases. Pre-indexed searches will be faster because the article information has been compiled ahead of time.
My first thought was, does this mean that WorldCat Local will then include EBSCO content? Apparently, the answer to that is Yes, as OCLC is now offering access to EBSCO databases via WCL for libraries who subscribe to both.
January 26, 2009
ALA sessions on Summon
As a follow up to last week’s post on Summon, The Shifted Librarian has two write-ups of sessions at ALA that discuss Summon in more detail. This one is more background on users and why we need a unified search interface. This one talks about the product in a little more detail, including the difference between this and a federated search product.
January 22, 2009
Summon
Some of you may have seen the press release for Serials Solutions new “Unified Search Interface” product, Summon.
It is meant to be a new kind of interface that pulls in a variety of sources, including article-level metadata from Proquest and Gale. Image and text below from the Serials Solutions site:
“It goes beyond federated search, beyond next-generation catalogs to create an all-new service for libraries. Through one simple search, it provides instant access to the breadth of authoritative content that’s the hallmark of great libraries – digital and print, audio and video, single articles to entire e-journals, and every format in between.”
They’re planning for beta this spring — this is worth keeping an eye on. There’s clearly a need for a product that does all this, so we’ll see how it delivers. If you’re planning to go to ALA or ACRL, you might want to stop by the booth for a demo. I’d be interested in hearing about it, and I’m probably not alone.
Links to:
Federated search press releases blog post
