ELUNA Annual Meeting 2017

When the CSU Libraries decided to migrate to Alma, I suspected the most challenging part of the migration would be training staff. How do you approach such a huge training task when most of the people in libraries are already overworked? People need to be able to access training materials in a way that fits into their schedules. Course management systems offer an excellent option for asynchronous learning and tracking participation. In this session, I’ll walk through some of the CMS tools I used to create our Alma Training course at Sonoma State.  I’ll talk about what worked and didn’t work in the training process, and how our approach evolved over the course of implementation. I’ll demonstrate some of the features of our CMS, Moodle, and talk about similar features in other CMSs. I’ll talk about how to apply pedagogical best practices to Alma training, and how to use some of the skills many librarians already have and apply them when developing Alma trainings.

This presentation will go over a PERL script that calls the Alma Analytics API and will demonstrate how it works. The data returned from the API will be written to a CSV file that can then be imported into a database and/or data warehouse. Code will be available in github.

Since many ELUNA members have common interests in Analytics, KBAB, Interoperability and/or Linked Data, we will combine the business meetings of these 3 Special Interest Working Groups into 2 sessions. This will include reports of our many activities for the year and future plans, and may include brief presentations from Ex Libris staff on topics of interest. We will have the opportunity for questions and discussion of issues, suggestions, and reports of interesting projects from those attending. Please join us!
3:45 - 4:00  Analytics SIWG Business Report, Margaret Briand Wolfe
4:00 - 4:15  KBAB SIWG Business Report, Kathy Varjabedian
4:15 - 4:30  Ex Libris Linked Data presentation, Dana Sharvit and Yisrael Kuchar
 

Since many ELUNA members have common interests in Analytics, KBAB, Interoperability and/or Linked Data, we will combine the business meetings of these 3 Special Interest Working Groups into 2 sessions.This will include reports of our many activities for the year and future plans, and may include brief presentations from Ex Libris staff on topics of interest. We will have the opportunity for questions and discussion of issues, suggestions, and reports of interesting projects from those attending. Please join us!

4:45 - 5:00 Linked Open Data SIWG Business Report, Laura Akerman

5:00 - 5:15 Interoperability SIWG Business Report, Allen Jones and Betsy Friesen

5:15 - 5:30 Ex Libris API/Interoperability report, Josh Weisman

The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) uses Primo as a Discovery tool for it's institutional repository independent of our Library collection.  The instutional repository is the publications workflow manager and master database for NREL publications.  This custom designed system was served up to internal and external audiences using Open Text.  When the Library implemented Primo in 2014 we saw an opportunity to streamline backend systems.  Initially publications data was imported to our Horizon ILS and then to Primo using our standard MARC pipe.  With the implementation of Alma in 2016 publications MARC data is imported directly.  This data is delivered to two views.  The library integrates publications with our Alma and CZ resources.  The Publications database displays only publications data.  We use restricted search scopes to block internal only documents from external users.  I will describe our workflow as well as the back office and front end customizations.

When Williams Libraries moved from Millennium to Alma/Primo in July 2016, we worried about how we would recreate two popular services, a course reserve request form and a text a call number feature, in our new system.  By "hacking" the general electronic service tool in Alma, we were able to recreate these services for our users, using PHP, mySQL, and the Alma API. See a demonstration of these services in action and an overview of the development process.  (This won't be a code-heavy presentation, but I'm willing to share the code with those who are interested).

Primo’s user interface (UI) has been redesigned and is in production today. Administrators now have the ability to enable the new interface without the need to go through an upgrade process. In this session we will show you how to select the new user interface. We will review the design principles behind the new UI and demonstrate the features available to your researchers.

Regional User Group meeting for institutions in Hawaii.

Boston University Libraries began working with Zepheira in 2016 to publish bibliographic data to the Library Link Network in linked data formats like Bibframe. The initial goal, to publish bibliographic data in linked data formats for general Internet consumption, was quickly accomplished. As linked data functionality was developed in Alma, the Libraries began exploring how to enhance their bibliographic records with a variety of linked data authority sources including Wikidata, Wikipedia, IMDB, GeoNames, Encyclopaedia Britannica Online, and Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. BU Libraries reported on the project to publish enriched bib records to the Library Link Network in a January Show & Tell. This update presents BU's efforts to make Primo a consumer of linked data elements from their own bib records published to link.bu.edu, to enhance the user discovery experience, and to enable patrons to more easily discover BU holdings when searching external sources.

Your researchers want to know what’s new in their subject area.  Books. Journals. Other materials.  Can the new “New Records” facet in Primo be used to create useful alerts?  The metadata in your own data sources or in Primo Central can help or hinder the ability to get useful results. Tricky search strategies we tried, quality vs. quantity, what worked and what didn’t.

This presentation will share the experiences and lessons learned at Central Washington University when ingesting LibGuides into Primo. A step-by-step process including creating a data source, a scope for the data source, a set of normalization rule, and a pipe will be reviewed. Other configuration details such as modifying the "Facet Resource Type" code table will be discussed. This presentation is for general audience.

Understanding the various ways in which format information is structured in Alma can be complicated at first - especially for libraries migrating from systems that relied more on locally defined fields. Alma relies heavily on official MARC coding and terminology which (through no fault of Ex Libris) can at times be outdated or obscure. This session will aim to break down format information so it can be easily understood and useful for searching, faceting and record clean-up. Topics will include:_x000D_

Alma format facets (Bibliographic Material Type, Resource Type and Item Material Type)_x000D_
Detailed search indexes for locating format information through Create Sets and Analytics_x000D_
How format information can be mapped and used in Primo_x000D_
Ways to identify and tackle format cleanup projects in Alma_x000D_

After this session, attendees should have a better understanding of how format information stored in Alma can be accessed and managed - both for use by internal staff and by library patrons.