LibGuides: PSC 412: Library Summon Search

Using Summon - The "Library Google"

From the MU Libraries homepage, you will see several search options on the library homepage. The first one is labeled Summon. Treat this like you would use Google: enter your search terms, and peruse the results until you find the most useful and relevant things to explore. Summon allows you to find results in print or online, and these results can be filtered to preferences such as scholarly, peer-reviewed, content type, publication date, discipline, and subject terms.

You can use the simple search box here, or, learn more about using Summon Advanced below.

Using Summon Advanced Search

Search for the Right Type of Source

The Summon Advanced Search on the library homepage allows you to select from many different options to narrow / refine your search results.

Summon Advanced by MU Libraries

A few more helpful tips...

Sometimes, we have search terms that are hard for a database to understand. For example: social media is a term, social is another term, and media is yet another term. But, they all mean very different things. So, when you need to keep a multiple-word search together, you may want to include quotation marks to keep the database from separating your words: "social media" versus social media.
Some databases will provide links to similar sources. Look for something that says Find Similar Results, or You May Also Like to discover additional relevant sources. Often, these options are on the sides of the page, or near the top or bottom.
When you find an article that is exactly what you were hoping to find, check out the References, Bibliography or Endnotes page (at the end), or Footnotes (at the bottom of each page). This information will tell you what that author used in their research, and may point you toward resources you otherwise might never have found.

Go to Summon Advanced