Skip to Main Content

Using the Library

Information for Readers.

Thank you for your interest in the Huntington Library. We are an independent research library for the humanities that welcomes researchers from all over the world. The Reader Services Department, located within the library in the Munger Research Center, is happy to assist you with your research.

We look forward to welcoming you to the library. If you are unable to visit us in person, please see the additional resources section to see how we can help you remotely.

Start Your Research by Searching Summon Discovery

Like a search engine, Summon Discovery allows you to search seamlessly across the library's resources including The Huntington's library catalog, digital library, finding aids, full-text articles from academic databases, and lots more!

To get started:

Narrow your results using the facets on the left.

For example, to limit your results to the:

  • Library catalog, go to "refine your results" and choose "library catalog."
  • Digital library, go to "collections" and select "Huntington Digital Library"
  • Electronic resources, go to "refine your results" and select "full text online" and/or "open access"
  • Rare books and manuscripts, go to "collections" and select "rare books" and "archival collections"

Explore Huntington content in other collections through the content panels on the right.

From the panels on the right, one click will take take you to any potential results in the:

  • Finding Aids
  • Art Collections
  • California Revealed
  • Huntington Media Archive

Didn't find what you needed?

Try searching resources separately:

For additional help, don't hesitate to contact the library.

More Summon Search Tips

Phrase Searching

Summon™ allows for phrase searching with the use of " ". The query "teacher education" will find results with that phrase.

Searching Specific Fields

The single search box in Summon™ (basic search box or keyword search box in advanced search) will search across many fields automatically. For example, entering an ISBN, ISSN, or Call Number will bring back associated records.

You can explicitly search a field using the syntax: field:(query) For example, the search ISSN:(1234-5678) finds records that contain that value in the ISSN field.

Searchable fields:

    Title
    SubjectTerms
    Author
    Publisher
    Publication Title
    Volume
    Issue
    Language
    Notes
    ISBN
    ISSN

Boolean Operators

Summon™ offers the following Boolean operations: AND, OR and NOT. The operators must be written in ALL CAPS.

By default, all terms in a search are combined with the AND operator. To expand the results set, use the OR operator. For example, microcircuits OR nanocircuits will return items that contain either term.

This can be combined with quoted terms such as "teacher education" OR "educator training".

To exclude items in Summon™, use the NOT operator or - character before a term. When used in the following query animal NOT dog, the results will not include the term dog.

Wildcard Use in Summon

Searches within Summon™ can be performed using the wildcards ? and *.

The question mark (?) will match any one character and can be used to find Olsen or Olson by searching for Ols?n.

The asterisk (*) will match zero or more characters within a word or at the end of a word. A search for Ch*ter would match Charter, Character, and Chapter. When used at the end of a word, such as Temp*, it will match all suffixes Temptation, Temple and Temporary.

Wildcards cannot be used as the first character of a search.

Browser Support

Summon™ supports the following browsers and phones:

    Internet Explorer 9.0+
    Firefox (current - 1) or current
    Safari (current - 1) or current
    Chrome (current - 1) or current
    iPhone 5.0+
    Android 4.0+