Did you know that when you use the main search box on the Library website you are using the Summon search and discovery tool? Summon can be thought of as a comprehensive, very large web-scale database and source of literature. Instead of having a niche focus like PubMed for biomedical information, Embase for pharmaceutical/drug information, PsycINFO for behavioral sciences, CINAHL for nursing and allied health literature, or AMED for complementary and alternative medicine information, Summon indexes sources from all of these resources and beyond – capturing not only what’s in the MSK Library collection, but searches can also be expanded to include results that exist outside of MSK. Follow these steps to run a basic search and view the difference between MSK-subscribed content vs. going beyond MSK’s collection.

1. Begin at the main search box on the MSK Library homepage
2. Type or copy/paste this search into the box and then click on the magnifying glass icon: “respiratory depression” AND opioids
3. You should notice ~18k results after being brought to the Summon interface
4. Try applying some of the limits in the left column to bring the results down to a more manageable number: journal article, peer-review, toggle to the last 5 years, public health discipline > you should now see ~400 article results
5. After perusing a few pages of results, you might not find exactly what you’re looking for > Click on the checkbox right below the search box at the top of the page to Add results beyond your library’s collection
6. Clicking this checkbox should up your results by ~50 papers or so, giving you a better chance and more options to find the information you need!

Any articles not found in our electronic collections can be requested using the ILLiad Document Delivery Service (DDS). You can also learn more about what exactly is being searched in Summon with some helpful diagrams and images highlighting key features.