Skip to main content
ExLibris
  • Subscribe by RSS
  • Ex Libris Knowledge Center

    Summon: Search Results Facets and Refinements

    • Product: Summon


    Return to menu

    What are Summon search results facets and refinements?

    Search Results Facets and Refinements

    Filters and facets are used to narrow search results to a more refined set of items. These tools appear along the left side of the Search Results page:

    SMN_RefineSarch_New1.png


    Search Results Refinements

    Available filters are listed in the following table. Filters and facets are enabled/disabled in the Settings page in the Summon Administration Console:

    Refinement Effect on Search Results

    Full Text Online

    The search results display only items in which the patron has online access to the full-text.

    Scholarly & Peer-Review

    The search results display only those articles from scholarly publications, including peer-review, which is based on whether Ulrich's determines a journal is scholarly.

    Peer-Review

    The search results display only content from titles verified as reviewed by peers in the profession, determined to be of academic quality, and suitable for publication, based on the same peer-reviewed standards as Ulrich's for journals and abstracts.

    Open Access

    Search results display only freely available and openly accessible content without requiring authentication by the user.  See Open Access Filter for details.

    Library Catalog

    The search only displays those results in your library catalog.

    Items at my institution

    The search only displays those results (print and electronic) available at your institution, rather than from other libraries in your consortium. Available to those libraries with a Union Catalog.

    Add results beyond your library's collection

    Unlike all other filters, this option expands a search results set, instead of narrowing it down. It performs an open search of the entire Summon index (excluding other libraries catalogs and private, institutional, A&I databases). A patron can then see what is indexed on the breadth of a given topic, and perform an interlibrary loan (ILL) for items to which your library does not have full-text access.

    The checkbox for this filter displays above the search results.

    Physical Books in Library Catalog

    The search limits results to physical books in your library catalog. Note that the record may also display links for eBooks if physical books and eBooks merge.

    eBook Full Text Online

    The search limits results to eBooks for which the patron has online access to the full-text. This is a shortcut for the combination of the Full Text Online filter and the Book/eBook Content Type facet filter.

     

    Search Results Facets

    Summon supports the following types of facets:

    • Targeted – This type is useful in managing records based on the nature of the results set and are displayed by default on the results page. Targeted facets include the following:

      • Author – Author names returned for the facet are limited to the top 100 values.

      • Content Type

      • Secondary Content Type – For additional information, see CDI Document Attributes for Summon.

      • Database – Based on the database ID (or 'DBID'), this facet returns only records in Summon for that database as long as the collection uses DBID rights mapping. Database names returned for the facet are limited to the top 100 values.

      • Discipline

      • New Records – Returns records that were added to the index within the last 7, 30 or 90 days.

      • Subject Terms

      • Publication Date

      • Institution (for those libraries with a Union Catalog)

      • Library Location – To display the Library Location facet by default, please ensure that the following settings are applied in the Customizer for each client.

        • Set Contextual Faceting for Union Catalog Enabled to On.

        • Set Institution facet to Disabled.

      • Language – Refers to the language of the full-text document itself.

    • Contextual – This type is useful in displaying the curated metadata from your library's MARC records in the context of your catalog and are not displayed by default, but rather in two ways: 1) when search results are filtered by Content Type: Book/eBook; and 2) when the patron selects the Library Catalog check box within the Refine your search section. Contextual facets include the following:

      • Genre

      • Region

      • Time Period

    Facet counts are displayed to the right, as seen in the following Content Type example identifying that there are 822K journal articles in the search results set. By default a facet's top filter values are displayed. You can either scroll through the facet values or use the Filter list search box when there are many facet values in the list.

    SMN_RefineSarch_New2a.png

    Refining Your Search Results

    You can include or exclude facets to refine your search results. Search results are updated as you include or exclude each facet value. All selected facets appear in the Selected banner, which appears at the top of the Facet panel when at least one facet value has been either included or excluded. Within the Refine Your Search area, users can perform the following refinements:

    • Include a facet value by selecting the check box to the left of its value. As values are included for a facet, the number of selected values appears above each facet.

    • Remove an included value by clearing its check box.

    • Exclude a facet value by hovering over the facet value and selecting its Exclude icon. As values are excluded for a facet, the number of excluded values appears above each facet.

    • Remove and excluded value by selecting the Excluded icon to the right of the value.

    • Clear all included and excluded facets by selecting the Clear all button in the Selected banner.

    SMN_RefineSarch_New2.png

    When multiple values are selected for a facet, Summon combines the values with a Boolean OR. See the Combining Multiple Facets and/or Refinements section for more details about combining multiple filters.


    Combining Multiple Facets and/or Refinements

    When multiple filters (facets or refinements) are used, they are combined with a Boolean AND. Another way of viewing this is that the filters are applied sequentially — namely, the first filter is applied to the original result set, the second filter is applied to the output of the first filter, and so on. This is not to be confused with the Boolean OR that combines multiple values of a facet.

    Example:

    A patron includes the Full Text Online refinement, as well as the Book/eBook and Journal Article values in the Content Type facet. In this case, two filters are applied: the Full Text Online filter and the Content Type filter, which uses two values (Book/eBook and Journal Article). The results are narrowed down to the items 1) that have Full Text Online AND 2) whose Content Type is Book/eBook OR Journal Article.


    How to Customize Facets and Refinements

    You can enable or disable Facets and Refinements in the Settings page in the Summon Administration Console.

    Use the Translations page in the administration console to change the text of labels related to this feature.


    Including Matches in Full Text

    By default, search terms are not matched against full text to increase performance and to provide a more focused results set. Your library has the option to enable/disable searches within full text. In addition, you have the option to allow user's to override the library's default setting. For configuration information, see the Settings page in the Summon Administration Console.

    When users are permitted to override full-text matching, the Include matches in Full Text refinement appears in the Facet pane, and if full-text matching is enabled by default, its check box is pre-selected for every search search.

    In the following example, full-text matching is enabled by default and users are permitted to override the setting by clearing the check box:

    SMN_IncludeMatchesInFullText1.png

    When matches in the Full Text are excluded:

    • Search results sets are smaller and more focused.

    • The Default (Basic) search continues to check for matches across multiple metadata fields for all content types. For a complete list, see Fields Included in Basic Searches. Only matches in the Full Text field are excluded. 

    • Library patrons can still include Full Text matches if your institution enables this option.

    • Relevancy rankings for the highest ranked search results should not be affected. The Full Text field has the lowest influence on relevance scores, and the top results should be very similar between the two options. 



    • Date Created: 9-Feb-2014

    • Last Edited Date: 1-March-2023

    • Was this article helpful?