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Table of Contents
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General Information

• ACRL and IPEDS information
  • Includes deadlines and links to survey sites
• Training Resources
  • Start here! - includes documentation and tutorials for Alma Analytics and more
  • Contact the Assessment & Analytics group for specific needs
    • We are happy to help work out tricky reports and are especially interested in developing analyses that may be used by multiple campuses
    • Email the Assessment & Analytics group
    • Subscribe to the ULMS-Analytics listserv
    • Join Slack channel #Analytics
• Shared Reports
  • Analytics Catalog:  go to Shared Folder/Community/Reports/Institutions/CalState/Assessment and Analytics/ACRL_IPEDS
  • Copy the report to your local folder
  • Reports will be set up as much as possible, but may require customization depending on local practices
• Other information
  • As always, many survey questions will require data from outside of Alma (staffing, services, etc.)
  • If you need an NZ Analytics login, contact Mallory DeBartolo (Unlicensed) or Sarina Sinick (Unlicensed)
• Recorded webinar
  • Webinar recording

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Survey Questions - specific information

Expenses (Q. 01-31)

• Staffing Types, FTEs, and Expenses (Q. 01-09)
  • Answerable using Alma Analytics?  NO
    • Use campus accounting and HR systems as normal
• Expenses (Exclude Staff) (Q. 20-31)
  • Materials / Services Expenses (Q. 20-23)
    • One-time purchases of books, serial back-files, and other materials (Q. 20)
      • E-books (if available) (Q. 20a)
    • Ongoing commitments to subscriptions (Q. 21)
      • Include subscriptions, standing orders, journal packages, and databases
      • Include annual electronic platform or access fees
      • Specific expense break-outs:
        • E-books (if available) (Q. 21a)
        • E-journals (if available) (Q. 21b)
    • Answerable using Alma Analytics?  Next year:  Basic level for 20 & 21; 20a, 21a, and 21b also possible if use specific POL types
    • Don't forget to manually add in CO spend on behalf of campuses (ECC)
  • All other materials/service cost (Q. 22)
    • ILL costs for materials
    • Pay-per-view article transactions (e.g. Get It Now)
    • Short-term loans as part of a Patron-Driven Acquisition (PDA) or Demand-Driven Acquisition (DDA) program
    • RefWorks, EndNote and similar services
    • Do not include postage or courier fees or the costs of bibliographic utilities associated with ILL (count as other expenses in line 25)
    • Answerable using Alma Analytics?  NO
  • Operations and Maintenance Expenses (Q. 24-27)
    • Preservation services (Q. 24)
      • Include binding, rebinding, and other conservation services
      • Answerable using Alma Analytics?  NO
    • All other operations and maintenance services (Q. 25)
      • All other expenses (exclude only expenses for new buildings and building renovations)
      • Don't forget to add in the CO spend on behalf of campuses (services other than information resources)
      • Answerable using Alma Analytics?  NO

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• Library Circulation / Usage
  • Total Physical Circulation (Q. 60 Column A)
    • Answerable using Alma Analytics?  YES, starting next year
  • Total Digital/Electronic Circulation or Usage (Q. 60 Column B)
    • Answerable using Alma Analytics?  Partially
    • Campuses must compute final numbers on their own due to non-COUNTER, MR, other issues
    • (BR1 + MR1 or + BR2 + MR2 (only where BR1/MR1 not available)) + Non-COUNTER e-book usage + Non-COUNTER e-media usage*
  • E-book usage (Q. 61-62) 
    • Answerable using Alma Analytics?  Partially
    • Campuses must compute final numbers on their own due to insufficient COUNTER data loaded in Alma
    • 61B = BR1 + MR1; 62B = BR2 + MR2 (if available)
  • E-serials usage (Q. 63)
    • Answerable using Alma Analytics?  Partially
    • Campuses must compute final numbers on their own due to non-COUNTER, other issues
    • JR1 + Non-COUNTER e-serials usage
  • *Recommended hierarchy for e-book usage computation:
    • BR1 (book title requests)
    • plus MR1 (multimedia content unit requests - the standard multimedia COUNTER report)
    • plus BR2 (book chapter requests) for book platforms where you did not report BR1 data
    • plus MR2 (multimedia content requests - an optional COUNTER report) for media platforms where you did not report MR1 data
    • plus non-COUNTER data for book or media platforms where you did not report any of the above COUNTER data

Information Services to Individuals (Q. 64-67)

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• Answerable using Alma Analytics?  NO
• Consult your campus office of Institutional Research and the Common Data Set
• FTE is based on credit hours in a 12-month period (for semester schools, 30 = 1 undergrad; 24 = 1 grad)

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Library Trends and Alma Migration:  Potential Imact on Reported Data

Q:  Media counts appear to be increasing and Physical Serials counts decreasing over last year.  Is this expected?  Where else might we expect to see significant changes?

A:  Increases and decreases in particular formats are likely because of the following widespread trends:

• Libraries are increasingly expected to support media needs--some physical (e.g. DVD movies) but mostly streaming (e.g. Kanopy, Docuseek2, Films on Demand, Naxos Music Library)
  
  • Therefore I would expect to see media counts increase year over year
• Libraries are increasingly expected to reduce their physical collections to make room for other services, and a major way to accomplish this is by withdrawing print journal runs
  
  • Therefore I would expect to see physical journal counts decrease year over year
  • I would also expect to see a general decline in the number of physical volumes reported
• Libraries are increasingly (though not entirely) preferring electronic formats over print
  
  • Therefore I would expect to see a decrease in physical titles and an increase in electronic titles year over year

Q:  What changes in reported data might result from the Alma migration?

A:  It is difficult to estimate the impact of the Alma migration on collection counts, but the following factors may be involved:

• Libraries may have re-calibrated their collection counts for items like physical journal volumes due to the barcoding projects many campuses undertook as part of the migration process
• Libraries may have conducted physical inventory and/or major database cleanup projects that resulted in purging a significant number of bibliographic records
• Libraries may have added holdings and/or items to collections that did not require them in the legacy system (e.g. special collections, government documents, or microforms)
• The counting method for e-books and e-journals differs slightly from the old methods used to derive the data from SFX, Serials Solutions, or ILS records

Q:  What wording would be useful if we need a standard/generic explanation for this for every library?

A:  If the reported data has changed significantly, individual campuses should supply a clarifying comment.  However, the following generic comment will cover most situations:

• “Due to the ILS migration to the new Unified Library Management System - Alma this year, methods for calculating this data have changed."