>home page by Marydee Ojala, Editor, ONLINE
The Winds of Change
‘G ame changing” was the way the Serials Solutions publicist described its new
Google-like search engine, Summon. It was announced at ALA Midwinter—
too early to review for this issue of ONLINE. But we’ll remedy that. Summon has the
potential to change how end users perceive the searching of library materials.
Since students rarely comprehend the nuances among the types of items in library
collections, although they are so obvious to librarians, it’s time to change the
V necessity of having this knowledge. All digital materials and physical materials rep-
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Live Links for the resented digitally will be equally discoverable through Summon.
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I March/April 2009 issue of As a proponent of “universal search,” Summon claims it “goes beyond federated
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ONLINE are available at search.” This is particularly interesting in light of the University of Wyoming’s expe-
www.onlinemag.net riences in implementing federated search, as told by the school’s reference librari-
for the following articles: ans in their article that starts on page 26.
Change, a ubiquitous word on the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign trail, came to
“Exploiting Synergies Among Digital the information world long ago. And the winds of change continue to blow through
Repositories, Special Collections, our world. It’s not just universal search bringing change. Microblogging using
and Online Community” Twitter extends the reach of librarians and allows them to become part of the con-
by Terence K. Huwe versation with users. Sarah Milstein’s take on this form of networking begins on
page 34. As someone who’s on Twitter (www.twitter.com/marydeeo), with fluctu-
“Twitter for Libraries (and Librarians)” ating regularity I’ll admit, I was entranced to find the District of Columbia Public
by Sarah Milstein Library not only following me but also sending me an @ message. This is particu-
larly astonishing in that it’s not my public libr