Summon Use at Dartmouth College USERS’ RESPONSE

Dartmouth College Library

Triennial Survey Summary of results o undergrad = 65% use Summon at least once a term (64% use Google Scholar at least once a term) o grad = 25% once a term (61% Google Scholar) o faculty = 25% once a term (74% Google Scholar) o Undergraduate students feel it is important to their research, but it is not important to graduate students or faculty. o When compared with other resources such as the Library Catalog, Library website, and the Research Guides all three groups ranked it last for meeting their research needs.

Importance: Comparison of Search Tools o Library OPAC o Summon o Research Guides o Library Website o Course Web Pages o RefWorks o Endnote

Criteria for responses How important are the following to your research? 4: Very important 3: Important 2: Somewhat important 1: Not important 0: Do not use

Undergraduates

Graduate Students

Faculty

Meets Needs: Comparison of Search Tools To what extent do the following resources meet your needs? 4: Completely meet needs 3: Mostly meet needs 2: Somewhat meet needs 1: Rarely/never meet needs 0: Do not use

Undergraduates

Graduate Students

Faculty

How often do you use a resource? o Library catalog o Library databases o Library website o Research Guides o Ask Library staff o Library catalog o Library databases o Library website o Research Guides o Ask Library staff o Summon o Google Scholar o Course Web Pages o Course Reserves o Web search engines

Undergraduates

Graduate Students

Faculty

Librarians on the Street : What are our users telling us?

Observations Summon  Pros  Cons

Current Library Search Box

New Directions for Searching

Results from three sources:

To Sum Up:

There is no doubt Summon has become an important tool in our arsenal of resources. Provides results in a variety of formats, sources, etc. Often provides sources to beginning researchers that would have taken much longer to find otherwise When the stars are aligned, and everything works as it should, it’s a miracle and users go happily on their way Users want ease of use, they want tools to be easy to figure out and they want them to work Facets are wonderful in concept and librarians and “power users” get them (and sometimes want more!) Most users are overwhelmed by the list, don’t know how to use it or, with many students, never even see it. When a new tool fails, it is hard to regain enthusiasm. The request for full text fails over and over. The reason for the hue and cry when we changed the primary search to Summon was due to this lack of confidence in the results and the ability to obtain them easily. When compared with other resources such as the Library Catalog, Library website, and the Research Guides all three groups ranked it last for meeting their research needs. Confusion was the term most used in comments

Questions? Ridie Wilson Ghezzi