Impact  &  Assessment  of  Summon  @  USC      

Beth Namei, University of Southern California

3/5/2014

USC’s Two Major Discovery Service Implementation Goals:

#1: Provide better discoverability of our subscription and purchased content (via a unified access point) #2: Provide relevant results

Goal #1: Provide better discoverability of our subscription and purchased content (via a unified access point)

757 (# of our subscription e-resources)

85% (647) of our database content is indexed by

Summon

62,797 # of journals indexed in Summon

OpenURL ClickThroughs to Full-Text

Summon added as default search option on the libraries’ homepage (July 2010)

Summon rolls out Direct Linking to Full-Text, bypassing the OpenURL link resolver (Nov. 2011)

Top Referring Sources to Full-text Content (via our OpenURL link-resolver)

In March 2013, 32 A&I databases were added to USC’s Summon instance. This led us to revise goal #2: Provide better discoverability and access to information, via a single search box, regardless of whether we own or subscribe to the content.

March 2013: 32 A&I databases were turned on in Summon

New ILL Accounts Created There was a 25% increase in new ILL accounts after March 2013, when USC added an ILL button to Summon

Typical complaints about our catalog: Even if you know the title of the book you're looking for, HOMER searches

often result in random/not relevant results. I find myself going to WorldCat just to locate books in our library! We need a better search engine.

...say I was trying to find out if the library has "The Name of War" by Jill

Lepore. If I search "Name of War" or "The Name of War" as the title, HOMER gives me a list of results that are totally wrong. In fact, the first result is "Domesticating Vigilantism in Africa." What?? On the other hand, if I go to Google Books or WorldCat and type in "The Name of War," Lepore's book is the very first result.

April 2010 - Pre-Summon homepage

July 2010 - Summon is launched as the default tab

July 2012 - Summon-centric homepage (Homer tab is removed)

The catalog is still an option, just a less prominent one:

via a drop-down menu

an icon below the main Summon search box

Summon added as default search tab (July 2010)

Catalog search tab removed from homepage (July 2012)

Over 3 Million Summon Searches in 2013

How Users are Getting to the Catalog (2013)

Success! We have received no complaints about our catalog’s (bad) relevancy since July 2012

But…users are still not completely satisfied with the

results they’re getting from Summon

Usability Study of the Homepage, 2013

The USC’s version of Quick Search just doesn’t generally turn up reliable results for me. I’ll search a very obvious keyword or a very specific keyword and it won’t turn up the most relevant results first even though I know the highly relevant results are in there it won’t bring them up so it’s probably a backend USC libraries problem with the Quick Search function. But because it’s difficult to narrow down by content and by type that I want and because the results just aren’t that relevant or they don’t turn up the best results first, I tend not to use Quick Search. Unless I’m feeling really, really lazy and I have to turn something in in 20 minutes and I’m like ‘whatever’s on top, I’ll take that!

What impact has implementation of Summon had on library instruction and reference service at USC?

Results from instruction survey Surveyed 47 instruction/reference librarians; 25 responded

(53%) •  14 out of 15 librarians who teach introductory library sessions

for freshman writing courses teach Summon: o  1 does not teach Summon at all

o  3 spend 1/4 of the class session demonstrating it (10-20 minutes), but also demonstrate 1-2 (or more) other databases/tools.

o  6 briefly demonstrate it (no more than 5 minutes) before moving on to demonstrating other databases/tools (most of these respondents said they felt obliged to address it since it was so prominent on our website)

o  5 spend the majority of their teaching time demonstrating it

Do you teach Summon in upper level/subject specific courses?

Yes: 12 No: 9 n/a: 4

Do you use Summon at the Reference Desk?

Yes 11 No: 12 n/a: 2

In what ways (if any) has incorporating Summon into your instruction sessions changed your teaching?

A wide range of responses: •  hasn’t changed my instruction at all •  allows for more time on other resources •  I spend less time with other [resources] to incorporate this one •  allowed for less lecture time spent on our webpage and what a database is and

more focus on content type, evaluations, building a search. Also: I have significantly cut down my lecture time to allow them to figure out these things through hands on activities.

•  I spend more time talking about the information cycle and what the different source types mean. I think it's allowed me to focus a little more on the higher-order skills of research because they don't have to be bogged down in the tool.

What is the single biggest factor that would increase use of USC’s discovery system?

better relevancy and

better linking