Summon: Index-Enhanced Direct Linking to Provider Content

The Summon service includes Index-Enhanced Direct Linking (IEDL) to make the end-to-end discovery-to-delivery experience more reliable for end users.

IEDL technology uses provider-specific data elements to dynamically create links. These uniquely tailored links provide direct, unmediated access to content on a wide variety of providers and platforms. This technology avoids the metadata mismatches between referring source and target platform that can impede linking via OpenURL.

IEDL linking is supported for more than a half-billion articles and a myriad of other content types. Integrated with Ex Libris's 360 KB knowledgebase, IEDL provides full-text links uniquely tailored to each library's collection. With metadata and full-text content from multiple providers brought together in a single record through match-and-merge technology, IEDL may provide multiple links to different sources depending on a library's holdings, and the library is able to customize link prioritization.

More than half of the items in Summon are IEDL linkable, including journal articles, e-books, digital collections and other content. Ex Libris is adding IEDL support for additional content platforms and providers on a regular basis. OpenURL is still used by Summon for materials when direct full-text linking is not available.

For more information, see the following resources:

• Date Created: 9-Feb-2014
• Last Edited Date: 28-Dec-2020
• Old Article Number: 8795