Don’t panic. Just summon the information.

Summon, a new research tool available on the WVU Libraries’ website, www.libraries.wvu.edu, is a powerful search engine that scours a very large database covering all types of materials and every academic subject. It is sometimes called a “discovery” service because it allows library researchers to use a single search box to discover material of all sorts.

“Summon reveals what is available at the WVU Libraries and offers fast access to content such as e-journal articles and digitized information, usually with a single click,” said Penny Pugh, Head of Reference for the Downtown Campus Library.

For example, if you search “Marcellus shale,” you will find recent newspaper and journal articles, articles from trade publications, and a dissertation written this year. That’s just on the first page of results. The search netted 9,890 items.

Summon contains listings for journal articles, books, e-books, dissertations, videos, newspaper articles, government documents, archival materials, photographs, maps, conference papers, reports, and more. Summon at WVU currently contains more than 200 million items and continues to add new listings each week. This includes most, but not all, of what is available in our library system. Expand your search beyond WVU’s holdings to include nearly 600 million items.

Refining a search is easy. Check-boxes on the left side of the results page enable users to limit the parameters by type of material, by subject, by date, or by language. Results can be limited to just scholarly articles.

Keywords are the most important factor in getting good results. Searching for phrases by enclosing them in quotation marks can help make the results more relevant. Entering different terms will result in finding different results. Using more terms will find fewer results. Using fewer terms will find more results.

When done, you can save your items to a folder in Summon and then e-mail or export them at the end of your search session. Folder items are not saved after you exit, so it is important to export or e-mail before you leave the service.

“Summon can be very helpful when you are beginning research on a subject that is new to you or investigating a multidisciplinary topic,” Pugh said. “It is also good starting place when you are uncertain about which discipline-specific library databases to use.”

As with other online resources, Summon is available off-campus. To access full articles and other online content from off-campus locations, log in by clicking on the black banner at the top of your results screen.

Summon is a great resources because it searches everything. But, if you are searching for a single known item, you may want to use other library resources.  To check for a book title, use the Mountainlynx catalog. To locate a copy of an article, use the Find it @ WVU application, which allows you to enter the article citation and then retrieves a copy of the article for you. To determine if the Libraries subscribe to a particular e-journal, use the E-Journals search page.  Links to all of these tools are on the Libraries’ website, www.libraries.wvu.edu.

 If you need help or want to report problems with Summon, links are located in the upper right corner of the Summon page. Use the feedback form to report a problem by email.  For live help, use the Libraries’ Ask a Librarian chat service, available from any library web page or the main page at www.libraries.wvu.edu/ask.

Robert Frevel, from Baltimore, won an iPad, Katelyn Amato, from East Liverpool, OH, went home with a Sony Reader, and Jayshawn Thomas, from Annapolis, MD, is now listening to music on an iPod Shuffle.

Their names were picked in a drawing of students who participated in “Discover! WVU Libraries,” part of the 2011 First Year Academy. The Libraries sponsored the event to introduce students to the library in order to assist them through their academic endeavors at WVU.

Depending on their major, students visited the Downtown Campus Library, the Evansdale Library, or the Health Sciences Library to learn about the array of available resources and services and to meet the librarians and staff who can guide them when writing a paper or doing research.

The visit changed Frevel’s perspective. He admits that he was less than excited about walking around the Downtown Campus Library when he first heard about the activity. Now, his favorite spot in the building is the Milano Reading Room.

“It was a good thing,” Frevel said. “The library is really nice.”

Thomas enjoyed exploring the Evansdale Library. She said she feels more confident starting the semester off knowing where to go when she has an assignment or needs to study.

Amato found the experience informative and helpful. As a transplant to the Mountain State, she found the West Virginia & Regional History Collection interesting and a great tool to learn about her new home.

She appreciated being able to tour the building and to get a glimpse of what’s there. She’s eager to return to work on a project.

“It was fun,” Amato said. “You got to meet the staff and a lot of other students. You got to get your first experience with the library with people who hadn’t been to the library yet.”