Answered By: Jessica Shuck Last Updated: Aug 21, 2025 Views: 50
What is Summon Power Search?
Summon Power Search is a single search box on the library’s homepage that searches:
- Over 200,000 print items available through Cornerstone, PRTS, and/or Kuyper College Libraries
- Millions of eBooks available through Miller Library and Hathi Trust Digital Library
- Journal articles, conference papers and newspaper articles from most of the library's databases
- And books and articles outside of our libraries (by selecting 'Add results beyond your library's collection')
Summon provides an easy-to-use discovery interface to search across much of our Library content with just a few keywords, allowing users to find more results in less time.
How is Summon different than a library catalog search?
The Miller Library catalog searches for resources owned by Cornerstone, PRTS, and Kuyper. It uses controlled vocabulary to search for titles, authors, subjects, and main contents of the resources, but does not include searches for individual articles, chapters, or the contents within the resources themselves.
Summon, on the other hand, searches through the contents of resources to find individual articles, e-Book chapters, newspaper articles, etc. to provide the user with a Google-like searching experience of the library's resources. Summon is searches almost all of the library's resources, as well as e-books from the Hathi Trust Digital Library.
Summon is best for finding a wide range of resources and for performing a thorough browsing of the library's resources, but the Miller Library Catalog may be better when the user already has specific books or media they are looking for.
How is Summon different than Google and Google Scholar?
Both Summon and Google/ Google Scholar search a massive index of information. However, there are some key differences to these searching tools:
| Summon | Google / Google Scholar |
| All content searched is readily accessible by the Cornerstone community | Many Google Scholar resources cost money to access |
| Results found are easier to refine to scholarly or peer-reviewed | In Google, it can be difficult to identify which articles are scholarly or peer-reviewed |
| Options for refining search (e.g. by content type, subject area, date) | Difficult to refine your searches |
| Books found can always be viewed in their entirety by Miller Library users | Books found can be limited and/or cost money |
What resources are available in Summon?
A large majority of Miller Library’s collection, print volumes from PRTS and Kuyper College, and Hathi Trust e-books are all available through Summon. The range of material includes:
- Millions of books and eBooks
- Journal, newspaper, and trade publication articles; conference papers; book reviews; multimedia resources
- More than 40,000 journal titles
- And much more
All records should link to full-text content (note that print books will open up in the catalog).
Why should I use Summon for research?
Summon Power Search is a unified discovery service that allows Miller Library users to quickly search, discover and access reliable and credible library content. Through one simple search, it provides instant access to the breadth of content found at Miller Library and other libraries - digital and print, audio and video, single articles to entire e-journals, and every format in-between.
Enter your terms and quickly get one relevancy-ranked list of library resources.
Summon's results were not relevant to my search. What should I do?
If you are finding that Summon's results do not fit your search, you may need to refine or enhance your search strategies, or you may occasionally need to search specialist databases to access library resources not yet available through Summon.
If you need any help in locating relevant resources, or would like assistance in searching, please contact a Miller Library research librarian.
How do I access the full text of my article?
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Select the Title.
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If you are taken to a page with "FULL TEXT AVAILABLE" links, click them.
Note: Clicking these links may take you to a database where you have to re-enter the article information. Do that, and THEN the full text should appear. - If steps 1 and 2 are unsuccessful, this is an error that we need to fix. Please email us with the details and we'll get on it!
How do I browse a journal title?
- Select "Advanced Search"
- Type the name of the journal in the "Publication Title" box
- Search
Can I use Summon to ONLY search books?
Yes, though you may prefer to use our library catalog for a book search.
To search ONLY books in Summon:
- Limit your "Content Type" on the left navigation panel to Book / eBook
- If desired, you can limit to only books owned by Miller Library by clicking "Items in the library catalog" (under Refine your search, left-panel)
How can I save and e-mail records from Summon?
- Save: Select the folder icon in the top right of the record in your search result. Your record will be added to your Saved Items folder at the bottom of the screen.
- E-mail: After saving, select the Saved Items folder. Select Email.
Is there a way to easily cite my Summon resources?
Yes. The library encourages and supports Zotero as a citation organizer and generator. Visit SERVICES > CITATION HELP to learn more.
How do I find resources from other libraries?
Summon will allow you to search for books from other libraries by selecting Add results beyond your library's collection under the "Refine your Search" limit (left navigation panel). Then, use MeL or ILL to request materials.
Does Summon really search all of the library's contents at once?
Almost. It searches all of Cornerstone's books and eBooks, as well as books from PRTS and Kuyper. Additionally, it searches more than 98% of our journals and eJournals. It does not search the CU Archives.
In total, Summon searches approximately 98-99% of Miller Library's contents.
How often is Summon Updated?
Summon is updated nightly with new information including newspaper articles, journal articles, books, etc.
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