The California State University System, the largest university system in the United States, has adopted the Summon service from Serials Solutions to provide improved discovery of library resources. The California State University (CSU) system of libraries serves over 440,000 students and faculty in 23 universities. Since 1997 a key focus of the CSU libraries has been simplifying the user-driven information discovery and content delivery experience.
Marvin Pollard, digital library services manager, remarked, "During the last fifteen years libraries have experienced a dramatic change in the information landscape as the switch to online digital content has dramatically accelerated. Meeting users' expectations for ease and convenience in this highly competitive online world has been a challenge. We continually monitor the tools and services that academic libraries can employ to deliver services that provide efficient, time-saving discovery and fulfillment services. After careful consideration and months of real-world testing the CSU libraries adopted the Summon Service for delivering quick and comprehensive discovery."
Pollard noted that the Summon API was a key factor in the decision to adopt the Summon service. "The API allows us to easily integrate and extend the Summon service to our ecosystem of academic technology services that integrates research and learning tools," said Pollard. CSU libraries have long been a pioneer in the concept of customizable discovery interfaces with the development of the Xerxes open source library portal application.
Recognized as the Best Enterprise Search Solution at the 2011 CODiE Awards by the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), the Summon service offers the most compelling user experience and provides the most full-text searchable content in a single unified index. The Summon index contains more than 800 million records which are optimized for discovery using an exclusive match and merge process for content ingestion. This allows the Summon service to return a single, unified result set, with superior relevancy, and provide unparalleled options for scoping searches and navigating across large result sets.