I'd be interested to know (based on feedback from library colleagues and users at my institution) whether it's possible to add Mendeley to the list of Export Options for references in Summon.

I understand that Mendeley users can currently export from Summon in some form, but they need to have an additional tool (the Mendeley Web Importer bookmark) in place in order to do this.

Would it be possible to add this to the Export Options list so users can export references in the usual way? I understand this is already in place for other providers, e.g. Refworks, Zotero, Endnote etc.

One persistent problem we have between Summon and EBSCO is abstracts indexed as articles in Summon. Some journals index these abstracts as individual titles, which is why they get pulled into Summon as standalone full text articles, but EBSCO (which is where we have full text) does not index them at all. So not only does the openURL break, if you search for them in EBSCO you often get zero hits. Since we have so much full text in EBSCO, this accounts for a good many of our bad urls in Summon and it is frustrating and confusing for librarians and users.

There's no consistent format for book review titles appearing in various periodicals. Across the Summon index, one sees entries like:

• {author name} {book title}


• {book title}


• Review: {book title}

and all manner of different combinations of these elements. Unfortunately, OpenURL linking to destination databases fails unless both sources agree upon the format of the title. Summon describes book review titles one way and it might match some databases, many it will not. Links from Summon to ProQuest databases don't even work consistently (see attachment).

Summon needs an approach superior to naive OpenURL linking or poorly formed searches using title metadata. Often, plenty of non-title metadata uniquely describes the item in question (date, issue, volume, and starting page rarely have the same disagreement issues as textual data).

Make display of all subfields from the 300 physical description field the default in Summon for all types of materials, in the catalog detail screen, results screens, and elsewhere. Currently, Summon only displays 300 MARC physical description information for books in search results and catalog detail pages; and even for books, only subfield “a” (pagination) is included. This means that patrons can’t see information like: number of DVDs or CDs in a set; whether movies are in black-and-white or color; playing time of DVDs or CDs; any accompanying materials like booklets with DVDs or CDs in book-and-CD sets; types and amount of illustrations; etc. This makes selection of desired materials more difficult for patrons. Please map and display subfields, including $a, $b, $c, $e, $f, $g, $3 from the 300 field.

Our library users have expressed great interest in having access to a New Acquisitions listing for our Library. This would display print books received and eBooks purchased in recent weeks, and would refresh on a regular basis. (It would be a bit different to limiting search results by publication date, as we sometimes purchase older publications).

Considering that we already send our catalogue records to Summon, and that we activate new eBook titles via the Client Centre, could there be an option or a facet in the Summon search interface to provide a listing of our new acquisitions?

We would also like to offer access to this listing on our library website, perhaps via a Summon search widget, and display the content in a visually-appealing manner such as that provided by the eBrary/LibraryThing carousel.

(Submitted as Ex Libris Case #00422303 and advised to submit this via Ideas Exchange).

I would like to propose that the content type=Report for Aquatic Sciences and Fisheries Abstracts (ASFA) records are changed so that ASFA records with Full text links can be shown instead of 'Citation Online' which is misleading to the client. We have inputted thousands of government document records in ASFA which have a full text link but these links are not currently displayed in the Summon Brief results. ASFA is no longer just an abstract and indexing database as it now includes links to full text publications and grey literature. This should be changed as it can impact all users who have a subscription to ASFA database.
The current display is useless to the client as it is misleading when there is a full-text link available in the original ASFA record.

We often find that identical searches performed on consecutive days come up with different numbers of results, and articles found when doing the search on one day don’t appear when doing the search on another day. The explanation we have been given is that it depends which server you hit with your search, but shouldn't the contents of each server be identical? This is especially problematic if you are running a workshop where students are completing a worksheet where they are asked to give numbers of results. The missing content is obviously an issue if you find something useful one day and it has gone the next.

Please take information for the “Language” field in Summon and the Alma Display Services page from the 546 language note bibliographic field, instead of the 041 language codes bibliographic field. The 546 language note contains more detailed information about the languages included in a resource than the 041, including whether they’re for subtitles, described video, summaries as opposed to full articles, translations, etc. The current information in the Language display is not helpful for patrons. Not only does it not give details about how the languages appear in a resource, the displayed languages aren’t consistent with the language of the rest of the bibliographic description.