Blog from November, 2015

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Today’s ULMS update contains information about the following;

  • Sarina and Mallory bios
  • Meeting of the Alma Consortia 
  • Vanguard update
  • Network Zone webinars

Meet Sarina Sinick and Mallory DeBartolo

Last week we announced the hire of our Data Migration Manager Sarina Sinick and our Workflow Redesign Manager Mallory DeBartolo. We’ve asked them to tell you a bit about their background, so without further ado:

Sarina Sinick was most recently the Lead Systems Librarian for the INN-Reach and resource sharing support team at Innovative Interfaces, and previously served on the circulation support team.  She has a MLIS from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a BS in cognitive science from UCLA.  She enjoyed leveraging ILS data to find and solve problems and is excited to be a part of the migration for the ULMS project.

Mallory DeBartolo comes to the Chancellor’s Office with an MLIS from San Jose State University and a BS in Business Management from UC Santa Cruz. She has a broad range of experience in almost every department of the library, from inventory management in Access Services to content analysis in Technical Services. A large part of her recent role as Project Specialist at San Jose State University’s King Library included workflow creation/revision and training program development.  Mallory’s specialty is figuring out how to create, document and teach scalable processes that utilize digital tools efficiently and effectively. In her free time Mallory enjoys making cocktails and taking walks around her neighborhood that mysteriously end at the frozen yogurt shop.

Sarina’s email is ssinick@calstate.edu and Mallory’s is mdebartolo@calstate.edu. They will begin to make the rounds starting right before Christmas and through the Spring, so be sure to say hi when you meet them, virtually or in person.

Alma Consortia meeting 11/16

David and Brandon met with representatives from the Orbis Cascade Alliance, University of Wisconsin system, and the University System of Georgia yesterday. The agenda discussed was:

  • What we can do together to work with Ex Libris on further developing Alma to meet our needs
  • Similarities and differences between our systems in terms of goals for Alma/Primo
  • What challenges and development needs do we share between our networks with Alma

Orbis and Wisconsin are both up and running on Alma, while Georgia and CalState are on extremely similar implementation schedules. We agreed that we share much common ground between our systems and that we should meet regularly to share information and develop a development plan to share with Ex Libris to address areas of concern to systems of our size.

Vanguard phase Update

The initial portion of the Vanguard phase is soon drawing to a close. Remaining project milestones include:

  • Turning in draft data migration forms to Ex Libris: Nov 17
  • Turning in revised data migration forms: Dec 1
  • Uploading data exports to Ex Libris: Dec 11
  • Turning in Alma configuration forms: Dec 15

In the meantime, Vanguard project managers continue to meet with Ex Libris weekly to ensure a baseline understanding of Alma’s functional areas and approach to library functions. These meetings will continue into January, when the Vanguard Alma instance will be released to the CSU to test. We, as well as they, look forward to telling you all about the process in January and Feburary!

Network Zone webinars

The schedule of webinars, to be delivered via WebEx by Ex Libris staff, has been finalized and is as follows:

  • Nov 23, 12-1p: General Introduction to NZ 
    • General introduction to NZ, what is it, how it works, how we build the NZ (record load process);
    • Shared decisions and configuration (very high level)
  • Dec 11, 11a-12: E-Resource management
    • Cataloging
    • Inventory mgmt
    • Acquisitions
  • Dec 16, 12-1p: Fulfillment configuration, options for resource sharing
    • ISO-based or fulfillment network
  • Jan 14, 12-1p: Discovery
    • Impact
    • centralized publishing
    • Primo Central
    • Google Scholar
    • Alma integration

I will be sending out Exchange meeting invites following this message for you to reserve the dates. Keep an eye out for those.

Take care,

Brandon

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This project update will cover the following topics:

  • CO Hiring update
  • Vanguard phase update
  • COLD update
  • Network Zone webinars iplanned for Nov-Jan)
  • ELUNA 2016 information

Chancellor’s Office Hiring Update

We are pleased to announce the addition of two individuals to our ULMS team at the CO. Sarina Sinick, our Data Migration specialist, comes to the CSU from Innovative Interfaces. She will be based out of CSU East Bay. Mallory DeBartalo, our Workflow Redesign Specialist, comes back to the CSU after a time at One Workplace. She will be based out of SJSU. Sarina’s start date is October 29 and Mallory’s is November 9. I will be sending out bios for Sarina and Mallory, contact information and more details about their roles in our ULMS implementation in the next project update. We look forward to getting them up to speed on the project and having you all meet them, virtually or in-person, soon.

Vanguard Phase Update

The vanguard campuses (Fresno, Northridge and San Jose) continue to work through weekly webinars conducted by Ex Libris towards their data submission deadlines in November and December. Recordings of the weekly meetings are available in Confluence at https://calstate.atlassian.net/wiki/display/ULMS/Ex+Libris+Presentations

COLD Update

The ULMS team (David, Alice and myself) delivered a presentation to COLD containing a project update as well as describing the ways that Alma enables collaboration. We focussed on resource sharing in the presentation as this is an impactful area to the system that will require some attention and focus. COLD has tasked the COLD Resource Sharing and Preservation (CRSP) committee to work with the appropriate bodies in recommending resource sharing directions using Alma for the CSU.

The presentation is available for viewing at https://calstate.atlassian.net/wiki/download/attachments/1179817/ulms-chico.pdf?version=1&modificationDate=1445626381109&api=v2

Network Zone Webinars

Ex Libris has offered to lead a series of webinars, open to all, describing the Network Zone in Alma in greater detail. The tentative schedule & topic list is in development and will be shared with this list as soon as it is received. The sessions will be available via WebEx and will be recorded for viewing by those who might be unable to attend. 

ELUNA 2016

There have been many questions recently about Ex Libris’ user group meeting, ELUNA.  ELUNA 2016 is scheduled to take place in Oklahoma City, OK from May 2-6, 2016. The Chancellor’s Office has a consortial membership to ELUNA that allows all CSU members to register at membership rates. Note that the schedule and meeting descriptions will not be available until early next year.

More information is available at the ELUNA conference site: http://el-una.org/meetings/eluna-2016/

 

Take care,

Brandon