Using FSU Libraries search tool: Summon
This first box searches over 250 Million items. The results include Books, Journal Articles, (including Peer-Reviewed), Databases, DVD's, Newspaper Articles, Book Reviews, eBooks, and Dissertations. Items are search at once and you then have the ability to limit your search to exactly what item(s) you need. Specify Content Type, Date of Publication, and include or omit types of materials on the left side of the results window.
Advantages in using Summon...
- Searching is fast, easy, and uses a familiar interface—it's almost like Google
- Search results include citations of many kinds of sources: books, journal articles, newspaper articles, conference proceedings, dissertations, photos, multimedia, and much more
- Search results can be quickly narrowed by using the facets: content type, library location, subject terms, publication date, language, and more
- Search results can be limited to scholarly or peer-reviewed sources with one click
- Searches can include materials that are not part of the Florida State University Libraries collections, but which can easily be requested through our interlibrary loan service (for example, try "Bacon Rusher", or "Author:"McGrath, Shelley M").
- Summon provides a search interface optimized for smart phones
- Citations in your search results can be viewed in six commonly used citation formats (APA, AMA, MLA, Uniform, Chicago, and Harvard), exported to EndNote, emailed, and printed
- RSS feeds are automatically created for any search you run; subscribe to a feed to receive notification when new search results meet your criteria
- Summon is not restricted to Florida State University users; anyone (including alumni) can search the database, but access to full-text, subscribed resources does require users be on the campus network or use Off Campus Access Sign In
Keep in mind
Phrase searching
Summon allows for phrase searching with the use of quotes. The query "local food" 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 or ISSN 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
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 "local food" OR "sustainable eating".
To exclude items in your results, 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".
Proximity operators
Use the tilde (~) character at the end of a multiple words. When used on the term local~10 food results include instances where the terms are 10 words apart or less.
Wildcards
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.
Use the tilde (~) character at the end of a word to match similar terms. When used on the term "Lead~" it will match "Wead", "Veade", and "Tead".
Browser support
Summon supports the following browsers and phones:
- Internet Explorer 6.0+
- Firefox 3.0+
- Safari 4.0+
- Chrome 7.0+
- iPhone 2.0+
- BlackBerry 8500+
- Android 1.0+
Summon is not supported by these browsers:
- Opera. (The display is similar to what it looks like on your phone, but still works)
Summon has not been tested on these browsers:
- Netscape
- Voyager
- SeaMonkey
- Maxathon
- K-Meleon
- Camino 2
- Sputnik (for Morph OS)
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