Summon Help: Search Tips

Phrase Searching

Summon allows for phrase searching with the use of “ ”. The search “teacher education” will find results with that exact 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 records related to those fields.

You can explicitly search a field using the strategy: field:(search terms). For example, the search title:(Art of Creative Teaching) finds records that contain those words in the title. 

Use quotation marks with this strategy to find records with exact phrases.  The search title:("Art of Creative Teaching") finds records with that exact phrase in the title field.

Searchable fields:

• Title
• Subject Terms
• Author
• Publisher
• Publication Title
• 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 the minus sign (-) before a term. The search animal NOT dog does not include results with 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, for example, 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+
• Firefox 3.0+
• Safari 4.0+
• Chrome (stable version)
• iPhone 2.0+
• BlackBerry 8500+
• Android 1.0+

Want a better Summon experience? We recommend using Chrome, Firefox, or Safari as your browser - NOT IE or Edge.

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