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Summon Linking

A guide on best practices for configuring and troubleshooting links in Ex Libris' Summon.

What is it?

This toolkit is designed to provide you with best practices and resources to optimize linking in your Summon discovery layer.

Who should use this toolkit? 

This toolkit is a good resource if you are running into one of the following challenges:

  • Linking to a specific content provider’s resources

  • Users are not being taken directly to an article, but end up on an intermediary page

  • Links are not working in general

  • Having issues with catalog/institutional repository links

  • When clicking through to a linking source, you are not receiving the linking source you expect

Background Information

IEDL (Index Enhanced Direct Linking) - Uses provider-specific metadata to build links to content.

OpenURL - Uses resource-specific metadata to build links to content using OpenURL protocol.

Catalog - Uses library-specific metadata to build links to catalog content.

Institutional Repository - Uses repository-specific metadata to build links to Institutional Repository content.

If you would like more information on these linking types, please refer to the following articles:

Steps to Take if You Run Into Linking Issues

Collect Specific Examples & File a Support Ticket

You’ll want to collect 3 to 6 examples of specific linking challenges/issues with the following information:

  • Results Metadata for the result causing the problem (title, author, dates, journal/book/resource, etc.)
  • Summon URL for results page that lead to the linking error 
  • URL to provider article 
  • Screenshots of both the Summon results page and the user lands on when trying to access the item
  • If requested by Support, a test login for your proxy server

Send your collected examples to Support by filing a ticket via the Support Portal, if you are having issues accessing the Support Portal AFTER attempting a password reset, email information.systems@exlibrisgroup.com

If it is a provider-specific linking issue check the following:

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