Tuesday, October 6
Ex Libris Updates: Providing Access to Library Materials in Exciting Times
Join us for an update on Ex Libris products and recent initiatives with a focus on efforts to meet patrons where they are with expanded access to the RapidILL network through the COVID-19 pod, an update on Rapido development, and a discussion of the value of Leganto for teaching and learning amidst a mass shift to remote and hybrid instruction. Bring your questions!
Presenter: Katy Aronoff (Senior Director of Solutions Architecture (Americas), Ex Libris)
The Path to Flexible Loading of Patron Records into Alma
In many cases, libraries chose to have their University’s IT departments code the XML for the patron load. In our case, we wish the flexibility to be able to assign certain privileges and statistical categories via the patron load as we did with our Voyager system. For example, how do we handle staff that are also students? How do we automate expiring patrons via the patron load—be they students, adjuncts, or staff/faculty with a termination date? How do we automate the assignment of statistical categories? The Cheng Library converted scripts that were used to create the Voyager SIF files into scripts that create XML files for Alma.
Presenters: Linda Salvesen, Ray Schwartz (William Paterson University)
Customizing Alma and Primo for Home Delivery
Like many Ex Libris libraries in Fall 2020, our library at California State University, Northridge is not physically open to the public but we want to support the research and study needs of our almost 40,000 students and 4,000 faculty and staff. This presentation will explain our Alma and Primo implementation to allow for home mail delivery of physical items, including policy decisions, workflow changes, customization of request forms through labels and delivery skins, customization of Alma letters, and a Python solution to add the “home” address type to patron addresses to make it all work.
Presenter: Christina Hennessey (California State University, Northridge)
Wednesday, October 7
This interactive panel* is focused around the new Central Discovery Index (CDI) that is now active in Alma environments. We’ll give a brief overview of our perspectives, our breakthrough moments, the things we wished we knew, how configurations can/should differ, and more. We’ll collectively generate a wish list, offer some tips and tricks, and answer some questions along the way. We encourage you to submit your question in advance and give us something to consider!
*Please note, the panel will be centered around CDI management from the Alma perspective; for SFX customers, your milage may vary.
Presenters: Terri Ann Coronel (Ithaca College), Dan Taylor (Ithaca College), Nancy Babb (SUNY Buffalo), Michelle Eichelberger (SUNY)
Why are There So Many Unhappy People: Improving Alma/Primo Decision-making Processes
When working in the Alma/Primo environment, there are many customization opportunities and the accompanying need for stakeholder input. It is tempting to have a prolonged process where everyone speaks or go to the other extreme and make solo decisions to get things done quickly. Generally, neither of those is ideal. This presentation discusses the successes and failures of the internal decision-making process involving Alma/Primo at the University of New Hampshire and how we changed procedures to increase everyone’s happiness, especially the presenters’.
Presenters: Jay L. Colbert and Sarah Theimer (University of New Hampshire)
Rialto: Beta-testing the Next-Gen marketplace and acquisitions workflows for Alma
Rialto is a next-generation marketplace for selection of both electronic and print materials that simplifies workflows for selects and acquisitions staff. This presentation will cover the benefits of being a beta-tester, steps taken to evaluate workflows at Rowan University for this new product, as well as issues encountered during this process. Comparisons will be made to our previous vendor GOBI, and the differences in processes.
Presenters: Jennifer Matthews, Angelina Brown, and Timothy Dewysockie (Rowan University)
Thursday, October 8
Ex Libris Training Session: Discovery and Delivery Configuration in Primo VE
During this session, we’ll explore how discovery and delivery are configured in Alma for Primo VE. We’ll see how the search, refinement, and display of results can be customized, and discuss how local and remote resources are configured. We’ll also see how to configure the delivery of resources using display logic and general electronic services.
Presenters: Laura Jacobs and Rae Cheney (Ex Libris)
Statistical Analysis of Library E-Resources Usage Data
Making the usage data of library e-resources meaningful and insightful will help libraries make better decisions in collection management. In this presentation, we will demonstrate our pilot project of data analyses of using statistical techniques to analyze the e-resource usage data of more than ten years at The College of New Jersey. Two popular statistical methods, Pearson Correlation Coefficient and Time Series Analysis, will be presented. The results will be discussed in detail. Our first goal is to understand the relationships between two different data sets by using the Pearson Correlation Coefficient method. The second goal is to discover the usage trend of library e-resources and to predict the future, by using the Time Series Analysis method.
Presenters: Yongming Wang and Jia Mi (The College of New Jersey)
KISSing Alma: keeping loading records via spreadsheets simple and straightforward
Williams inherited an equipment loan program with over a 140 pieces of equipment. We needed to create a reservation system and circulate them through Alma. We implemented the Alma booking module, used Libguides as a ptron interface to the equipment, and created spreadsheets that loaded the descriptive and item records into Alma. The use of spreadsheets reduced manual work from days/weeks to hours. Our results were so successful that we decided to use spreadsheets to load our textbooks and over a hundred zines. In this presentation, I will focus on how to set up the spreadsheet and how to load the records using them, discuss our workflow, show the Libguide we created as a user interface, and discuss our experiences with implementing the Alma booking module.
Presenter: Walter Komorowski (Williams College)
Friday, October 9
To be found or to be missing what is the plight of “on the shelf”
This presentation is an overview of research being done on collections at Binghamton University. It started out as random sampling of three collections for new materials and again the overall books in each collection. From that a full inventory of the 3rd floor materials was started prior to having to move the items to a new location for renovation. This talk will be about the findings from the random sample, and also findings from the first 100,000 items in the “stock taking” inventory at Binghamton University.
Presenter: David Schuster (Binghamton University)
Interconsortial Article Resource Sharing through Alma: The Pilot Partnership between SUNY and the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities
The SUNY Library Consortium and Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) Library Consortium are in the initial stages of a pilot partnership to use Alma’s fulfillment functionalities to enable interconsortial article resource sharing between the SUNY and CSCU system libraries. This presentation will describe configurations in Alma, review the background and current status of the partnership, and discuss where the partnership could lead. We will leave plenty of time for discussion and will encourage brainstorming from attendees about how libraries and consortia can collaboratively use Alma for resource sharing.
Presenters: Timothy Jackson (SUNY) and Patrick Carr (Connecticut State Colleges and Universities)
Pandemic Pivot : Reimaging Mass Transfers
Pandemic Pivot: Reimagining Mass Transfers In the winter of 2019, Penn Libraries embarked on an ambitious plan to identify 500K volumes of material for either transfer to our off-site storage facility or for deaccessioning in a 2-year timeframe. After re-tooling the inherited transfer process, all the building blocks were in place for us to hit our goal. The pandemic had other plans. In this presentation I will discuss how we re-imagined the transfer process to leverage the staff and space at our high-density storage facility. As part of the presentation I will outline challenges faced as well as strategies and tools used to find efficiencies in our transfer process.
Presenter: Katia Strieck (University of Pennsylvania)