University of Tokyo Selects the Summon Discovery Service
The University of Tokyo Library in Japan recently selected the Summon® discovery service from Serials Solutions®, a ProQuest® business. The powerful navigation and contextual guidance features in the Summon service significantly advance the research experience for both novice and experienced researchers. Librarians at the University of Tokyo will now have a better way to connect with more users, customize the discovery experience and lead users to better research outcomes.
According to Hiroko Yamazaki, librarian at the University of Tokyo Library, “We chose Summon because the single search box powered by the underlying single unified index enables users to find a variety of resources across our collection, simply and easily. We are counting on Summon to provide a discovery experience that meets our users’ expectations.”
The Summon service supports discovery of content regardless of where the library purchased the resource or which provider hosts it. Unlike other discovery services, the Summon service leverages a unique match and merge technology that combines different types of metadata and information from multiple sources creating a single record optimized for discovery. This unique approach exposes resources to more users, directs researchers to full text when available, and maximizes the value and usage of a library’s collections.
“The Summon service is a built-for-purpose discovery engine that revolves around a single, unified index of content and relies on sophisticated relevance ranking algorithms that are continuously refined to meet changing user expectations. It’s a differentiator that customers like University of Tokyo value,” said Kevin Stehr, vice president, global sales for technology solutions, ProQuest.
The University of Tokyo Library includes the General Library on the Hongo Campus, the Komaba Library on the Komaba Campus, the Kashiwa Library on the Kashiwa Campus, and 32 departmental libraries at the university’s graduate schools, faculties, and institutes. The entire collection includes more than 9.2 million books, nearly 25,000 serials, and various digital resources, such as databases, e-journals, and e-books.
Used by more than 700 libraries in more than 40 countries the Summon service is the first and only discovery service based on a single, unified index of content, containing more than 1.4 billion items in which the vast majority of article and book content is full-text searchable.
With the introduction of Summon® 2.0 – groundbreaking features and a new, modern interface – the Summon discovery service continues to deliver a user experience that resonates with users familiar with open web search engines. Streamlined navigation and contextual guidance features significantly advance the research experience and provide greater opportunities for librarians to deliver value and scale their services to connect with more users.
75th Anniversary of Landmark Innovation
ProQuest is celebrating the 75th anniversary of microfilm and the legacy of innovations that have supported researchers and librarians for more than a century. The launch of University Microfilms, Inc. (UMI) introduced a new era for libraries, enabling preservation and sharing of large document collections.
To commemorate this pivotal milestone, the company created a comic book that tells the story in true superhero fashion of how microfilm became the gold standard for information preservation. Eugene B. Power and the Wild Beginnings of UMI is available in print and e-book format.
About ProQuest (www.proquest.com)
ProQuest connects people with vetted, reliable information. Key to serious research, the company’s products are a gateway to the world’s knowledge including dissertations, governmental and cultural archives, news, historical collections and e-books. ProQuest technologies serve users across the critical points in research, helping them discover, access, share, create and manage information.
The company’s cloud-based technologies offer flexible solutions for librarians, students and researchers through the ProQuest®, Bowker®, Dialog®, ebrary®, EBL® and Serials Solutions® businesses – and notable research tools such as the Summon® discovery service, the RefWorks® Flow™ collaboration platform, the Pivot™ research development tool and the Intota® library services platform. The company is headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan, with offices around the world.