Jump to:
- Session 1– Thursday October 12th- 10:30am
- Session 2– Thursday October 12th- 1:30pm
- Session 3– Thursday October 12th- 2:50pm
- Session 4– Friday October 13th- 9:00am
- Session 5– Friday October 13th- 10:15am
- Session 6– Friday October 13th- 11:30am
Session 1- Thursday October 12th, 10:30am
A New Chapter: Digital Course Reserve Then and Now 
Sui Mei Grierson and Paul Whiting
SUNY University at Buffalo
Slides
Join us to explore the transformative journey of the University at Buffalo Libraries as we embrace innovation through digital fulfillment to provide online access to our course reserve collection. We’ll explore the brief history of UB’s Digital Course Reserve, demonstrate our current system, share valuable insights, and outline our future plans to move to Alma-D.
Implementation of Esploro at Susquehanna 
Brianne Dort and Ryan Ake
Susquehanna University
Slides
Susquehanna University is among the first schools to implement Esploro. We are also a small, private, non-research focused university. This presentation would focus on why our school chose to implement Esploro, how the process went, and what our focuses are for the program in the future.
It Only Does One Thing: Building an Inventory Date Updater for Alma 
Rebecca Hyams
Borough of Manhattan Community College- CUNY
Slides
When taking inventory for hundreds of items in Alma, the default choices are editing the inventory date for each item manually or creating a set from the item barcodes and updating their dates by batch job, both of which have their drawbacks. But wouldn’t it be better to scan the item’s barcode and trigger an update of the inventory date right then and there with no extra steps? And better still, what about checking that the item is actually in the system and not in some process status that needs to be resolved? I will talk about how I built a small program in Python that we have started to use to make taking inventory much simpler.
Making Local Authors Shine: can Alma/Primo provide a bright enough light? 
Nancy Babb
SUNY University at Buffalo
Slides
One of the greatest challenges in promoting the works of local (university) authors is simply gathering the lists of publications, title by title and year by year. This can be especially challenging at a large institution, with many departments and faculty, where lists of publications may be generated and maintained by multiple areas, using various criteria — or not at all. Even libraries that are actively and integrally involved as a primary player in the promotion of university scholarship may find it a struggle to stay on top of the latest publications, having to depend on external reports or current awareness alerts. Searching by author instead of individual title seems a more efficient and effective way to generate these lists, and Alma and Primo can provide the means to both identify and promote publications via search-by-author. This presentation will share the highs and lows of the University at Buffalo Libraries’ experiences in pursuing a better, more automated means of highlighting the works of local University authors.
Session 2- Thursday October 12th, 1:30pm
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Gift Books (Not really)
Mary Beth Weber, Christopher Sterback
Rutgers University
Slides not available yet
Rutgers University Libraries migrated to Alma and Primo VE in 2018. The pre-go live technical services freeze, compounded by staffing shortages and later the COVID-19 lockdown, has led to backlogs of donated materials throughout our various libraries. Our solution was to develop a procedure that engages our selectors to provide very brief information (ISBN, title, author, publisher and year of publication, etc.) that’s recorded in an Excel spreadsheet and later used to create brief records in Alma.
These brief records are known as PreCat records and serve as placeholders that enable books to be discoverable in our local catalog. While records for PreCat books aren’t published to OCLC, they are lendable to our users and through regional resource sharing partnerships.
Please join us for an overview of how the process developed, the workflow required for each PreCat project, and how PreCat records can grow up to be fully cataloged bibliographic records that are published to OCLC. The PreCat process is truly a collaborative effort that draws on the contributions of personnel from across our library system.
Implementing Leganto in a non-Primo library 
Erin Sharwell
University of Pennsylvania
Slides
In the Summer of 2023, Penn Libraries (consisting of thirteen libraries, ten of which use course reserves) migrated our course reserves operations from Ares to Leganto. What was unusual about our migration is the fact that we do not use Primo; we have Blacklight as our discovery interface. We are the first library to implement Leganto with Blacklight.
This presentation discusses our overall experience undertaking a Leganto implementation, and highlights the particular challenges of doing so without the Primo discovery layer.
Improving Our Patrons’ Resource Sharing Experience Through Discovery and Branding
Lauren Bradley
SUNY Maritime College
Slides
Through changes in discovery, branding, and instruction, SUNY Maritime College increased Alma’s Resource Sharing borrowing requests by 43%. As a small library, resource sharing is a lifeline to provide the most resources to our users. In this presentation, I will share simple solutions that a library of any size can adopt to make this program more accessible to end-users.
Streamlining Patron Data Management: Adelphi University’s Journey from Manual Entry to Automated Integration into Esploro
Saleena Chiu
Adelphi University
Slides
At Adelphi University, we migrated to Alma, Leganto, and Esploro in the Spring of 2020.
Due to staff turnover, management changes, and the pandemic, patron data, both students and faculty, were not being loaded automatically.
Not until the full implementation of Esploro a year later was it discovered that this became a problem as our faculty information was not being imported from Alma’s platform. Learn how Adelphi University went from manually adding faculty data on a day-to-day basis, to using the ExLibris provided cloud apps, to implementing a fully automated integration using the SIS loader. Learn how we worked with campus IT to define our XML requirements, applied XSLT to handle faculty data, and add all faculty as researchers in Esploro to help streamline our repository workflows.
Session 3- Thursday October 12th, 2:50pm
I Didn’t Know You Could Do That in Alma! 
Kristen Fredericksen
CUNY Office of Library Services
Slides
Alma is constantly evolving, and it can be difficult to keep up with every feature. This session is a roundup of useful settings and tools in Alma that you may have missed. All areas of Alma functionality will be covered, including acquisitions, discovery, fulfillment, and resource management. Attendees are guaranteed to learn at least one new thing.
“If You Build It, They Will Come: A Self-Service Locker Journey”
Lisa McLaughlin and Paul Whiting
SUNY University at Buffalo
Slides
To meet a growing demand for user convenience and access, in 2021, the University Libraries Delivery Services at the University at Buffalo implemented 24/7 self-service library book pickup lockers at two of its library locations. In this presentation, Lisa McLaughlin (Resource Sharing & Collections Maintenance Strategist) and Paul Whiting (User Experience Manager) will discuss the implementation process including Alma and ILLiad integration/configuration and Alma and D-Tech software workflows. Challenges and outcomes, including a recent expansion of the service to an additional location, will also be discussed.
Leganto Analytics meets new friends Springshare Stats and Julia Programming: Improving Libguides and Collection Development 
Craig Rosenbeck
Roberts Wesleyan University
Slides
When evaluating our Leganto Analytics during an opportunity of serving on the Leganto Working Group these analytics can be used elsewhere. Leganto Analytics dashboard could present certain detail that our Springshare LibGuide Statistics or collection development policy. Therefore, why not use Leganto analytics to improve our libguides and take certain analytics for collection development. Then let a Julia programming script run these different file formats to display to the terminal. At that point decide what needs cleaned up to use the data to purchase e-books for various departments.
Streamlining Workflows with Widgets and Dashboards: Adding Data from Analytics to your Alma Homepage
Mary Tuttle
SUNY University at Binghamton
Slides
Many of us already open our Alma homepage at least once per day; why not make it a more informative (and exciting) landing page? By customizing your homepage with widgets or data visualization dashboards, you can save yourself time and clicks by making Analytics data more easily accessible to you and the non-Analytics users in your library. This presentation will be a walkthrough of how to add Analytics data and visualizations to your (and others’) personal Alma homepage. Half of the presentation will focus on making charts and graphs in Analytics and turning those visuals into widgets, while the other half will look at the Data Visualization tool to make similar charts and graphs that can be added as your Alma homepage, as well. Examples will be given on why and how this is useful in making data-informed decisions and streamlining workflows in my work as a subject liaison, as well as in other library units, such as Reader Services and Technical Services.
Session 4- Friday October 13th, 9:00am
Alma Resource Sharing in the SUNY System
Timothy Jackson
SUNY Library Services
Slides
This presentation will discuss SUNY’s implementation of Alma resource sharing for both physical and digital requests, successes and failures of Alma resource sharing within SUNY, efforts to expand our Alma resource sharing network to include non-SUNY libraries, and the impact Alma resource sharing has had on our resource sharing costs.
Collecting Syllabi with Alma-D
Jared Cowing
Williams College
Slides
The Williams College Libraries have for some years collected syllabi from faculty who opt to submit their syllabi for preservation. Previously submitted by email to a custom-built website, the process has been shifted to Alma-D to utilize its patron deposit functionality. This presentation will offer an overview of that project, including efforts to correct and enrich metadata with data from the Registrar’s Office. The strengths and limitations of Alma/Primo for acquiring and discovering this content will also be reflected upon.
Tips for Actionable Dashboards and Reports
Joan Kolarik
Drexel University
Slides
Frustrated by endless rows and columns of black and white data? Lost among bars and pies and unsure of what needs to be done? This presentation will share tips for bringing action to your reports and dashboards via techniques such as color coding, active links, and more. Examples will be shared based on analytics from Alma, Primo, and Esploro.
Session 5- Friday October 13th, 10:15am
Community-Driven Response: Innovation through Systems Integration
Bill Jones
SUNY Geneseo
Slides
Systems Librarians usually have big desires for better data integration and platform interoperability. Many times we find ourselves saying, “Wouldn’t it be great if…?” Or we might frequently be wondering, “How can I have these two systems talk with each other?” This presentation will share insider details on three different innovative library middleware projects: (1) Primo Speed Tracker; (2) Alma User Data Transformers; and (3) ILLiad Alma NCIP Addons. Come see how I developed a javascript widget to embed into the Primo interface that allows users to report whether or not they felt the Primo results page loaded fast enough. Learn about the Alma patron XML data structure and how I developed Python scripts to create Alma compliant XML with patron data extracts delivered in .plif, .xml, and .csv file types. Finally, listen to the wild tale of how the ILLiad Alma NCIP Addons came into fruition and where they stand now.
Go Fetch! Embedding Alma Analytics Reports in Webpages
Justin Dise (SUNY University at Buffalo), Michelle Eichelberger (SUNY Library Services), Liz Simmons (SUNY Genesee Community College)
Slides
Presenters will review their use case for embedding a dynamic, browsable course reserve list created in Alma Analytics in a public webpage. They will demonstrate workflows for creating an Analytics API and finding the corresponding URL, fetching the API data, and using simple Javascript combined with DataTables to display the content of the report in a webpage.
Managing Usage Statistics in Alma: COUNTER, SUSHI, and Ongoing Maintenance
Elizabeth York
Rutgers University
Slides
Every academic library needs a way to consistently manage its electronic resources’ usage statistics. This presentation will describe the process followed by Rutgers University Libraries to configure COUNTER usage statistics management in Alma, including automated usage statistics harvesting via SUSHI. It will describe the scoping and configuration decisions faced by libraries and offer suggestions based on Rutgers’ experience. It will also cover processes for reviewing Alma’s monthly SUSHI harvests and correcting harvest errors. This presentation should be relevant both to libraries that are interested in getting started with usage statistics management in Alma as well as to libraries that would like to fine-tune their existing procedures.
Using Alma Digital for Student Capstones
Chad Mills
Rutgers University
Slides
The presentation will focus mainly on the technical implementation of Alma Digital for student capstone projects at Rutgers. Some areas that will be covered are the configuration of collections, student deposit forms in Alma Digital, the staff review process, publishing to the Alma Digital Collection Lobby, and ongoing maintenance of the the collections.
Session 6- Friday October 13th, 11:30am
Finish the job Alma started (with APIs)
Katherine Schultz
University of Pennsylvania
Slides
I’ll show folks how the Alma API and Python can retrieve the results of an Analytics query, edit the records, and return to Alma. For Part 2 I’ll show how the Alma jobs API can automate the Alma ‘Synchronize Bib records with external catalog’ job for shelf ready records.
Migration Complications: How Two Institutions Survived Alma Implementation
Nicole Scalessa and Arianna Schlegel (Vassar College), Jing Wang and Alistair Morrison (Johns Hopkins University)
Slides
Join Nicole Scalessa and Arianna Schlegel from Vassar College and Jing Wang and Alistair Morrison from Johns Hopkins University as they discuss their recent migrations to Alma.
When Alma Analytics is (and isn’t) enough : how to create actionable data to drive informed decision making
Rachel Fager and Matt Gray
Saint Joseph’s University
Slides
Saint Joseph’s University merged with the University of the Sciences last year. Using Alma Analytics and Gold Rush we reviewed the collection at both locations to identify unique and duplicate monographs and inform curation of the collection to match the current curriculum at each campus. This presentation will focus on our experience creating understandable and actionable data from two libraries. We will discuss how we investigated the limitations of the data from both libraries; explored the capabilities of Analytics and Gold Rush; extracted and combined data from Alma to Gold Rush to Analytics; and presented the data internally to inform the liaisons’ decisions and externally to the campus community.
In addition, we will explain why Gold Rush was chosen to supplement Analytics and how similar projects could be completed with only Analytics.