UALR’s Ottenheimer Library will install a new search engine for its print and electronic collections beginning in the new year.
Serials Solutions’ Summon web-scale discovery service will provide UALR researchers with a new Web and mobile interface that will allow users to search all of the library’s collections from a single search box. The change will improve the ability of researchers to find information quickly and easily.

Developed by Serials Solutions in 2009, the Summon discovery system is a customized search engine that provides article-level access to scholarly resources.  Web scale discovery is a new technology that is increasingly being adopted by universities to simplify and expand access to research information.

Serials Solutions recently signed its 150th customer worldwide to the Summon service.  Other universities that have also recently selected Summon include Columbia University, Pennsylvania State University, University of British Columbia, University of Michigan, and West Virginia University.

“With its implementation of Summon, Ottenheimer Library will be able to offer its users single-search access to its collection of more than half million library volumes as well as the full-text of millions of articles from more than 50,000 electronic journals,” said Ottenheimer Dean Wanda Dole.

Summon will be a new search interface that will supplement rather than replace the existing library catalog and article databases.  Library staff will be working with Serials Solutions through December and January to ingest local catalog and serials subscription data into Summon. The anticipated launch of the Summon interface is expected to be in early 2011.