Acquisitions and ERM: Getting Started

Owned by Jessica Hartwigsen
Last updated: May 05, 2024 by Christina Hennessey
14 min read

Welcome to Alma! This is a reference guide to help you get started with Alma Electronic Resources and Acquisitions processes is the CSU. Also included is information on CDI along with Tips and Tricks for troubleshooting.

Note: The manual was originally based on the New Staff Training Group for Resource Management (Orbis Cascade Alliance).

Welcome to Alma! This is a reference guide to help you get started with Alma Electronic Resources and Acquisitions processes is the CSU. Also included is information on CDI along with Tips and Tricks for troubleshooting.

Note: The manual was originally based on the New Staff Training Group for Resource Management (Orbis Cascade Alliance).

  • See Appendix A for definitions of CSU Alma and Central Discovery Index (CDI) terms and functions.

  • Alma LibGuide: Good resource for those new to Alma.

Let’s get started!

Let’s get started!

ULMS Policies:

Shared e-resources (ECC and Opt-In)

Local e-resources

Applies to both shared AND local e-resources:

Acquisitions Policies (Not specific to ERM)

Searching the Alma Repository

Description​: Knowing what information is available via a Repository Search and how it is indexed is not always self­-evident, but it is important to understand in order to prevent duplication of records and efficiently manage tasks.

Acquisitions - Ordering E-resources

Description​: The creation of a POL in Alma is typically where the e-resource activation workflow begins. Where to begin when placing an order in Alma (IZ, NZ, or CZ) depends on whether or not the resource being ordered is locally managed (a local subscription) or is part of an opt-in shared e-resource that’s centrally managed by the Chancellor’s Office.

ExLibris Knowledge Center

ULMS Resources

Ordering Shared E-Resources (Opt-in/ECC)

**See section 9 below for additional information related to shared e-resources.**

Shared e-Resources (ECC and Opt-in) - Consortial Acquisitions in Alma

For the procedures below, individual libraries will follow the instructions beginning on each page where it says “Libraries Start Here”

How-to Article for order Opt-in collections

Portfolios

Please take a moment to review “E-Resource Workflows” and “Managing Electronic Resources” in the KB.

Description:​ Portfolios identify characteristics of an individual electronic item (URL, etc.) and generate links for access to and coverage of electronic resources in Primo. They can exist in Alma on their own (standalone), be grouped into a locally created electronic collection, or can be linked to an existing CZ e-collection.

  • Understand the choices available for bibliographic records describing electronic resources in Alma (CZ records, OCLC records in NZ, vendor records).

    • See Appendix A -NZ, for more details on where records originate for the CSU in the NZ.

  • Managing local portfolios

Activation

*Note: To override parser parameters for an entire collection of portfolios (rather than just a single one), edit the Service rather than the portfolio.

Enable/Disable proxy for the portfolio

*Note: To set proxy for an entire collection of portfolios (rather than just a single one), edit the Service rather than the portfolio.

See Appendix A for a definition of “Linking” in Alma.

Coverage tab

  • Update local or global coverage dates

    • Add/remove coverage embargoes

Acquisitions tab

  • POL line, License, and PDA info.

Notes tab

  • Searchable in Advanced Alma search and in Alma Analytics.

    • *Notes can be assigned at the portfolio, service, and electronic collection levels in Alma. Electronic collection and service notes are inherited by ALL portfolios in that collection. Service level notes are NOT searchable.

    • Internal description are good for tracking local changes, what was change, when it was changed and who made the change.

    • Public notes or Authentication notes are good for notifying the public or restrictions or specific authentication steps needed for the e-collection or portfolio. Notes can be used to explain that an article search may need to be repeated if the e-collection only has journal-level linking.

    • HTML tags are also useful in highlighting public or authentication notes in Primo.

  • Displays a list of all portfolios linked to the same bibliographic record, along with corresponding coverage information.

History tab

  • Displays a list of changes that were made to the portfolio.

Working with portfolios in Electronic Collections

Linking local portfolios to the CZ

GOBI single title ebook activation workflows

Checking CZ Task List Update Reports

  • Check the weekly updates to the CZ. These changes are applied to any active e-collections in the IZ.

    • There is a presentation available on the wiki as well documentation from Ex Libris.

Managing Local Electronic Collections

Please take a moment to review “E-Resource Workflows” and “Managing Electronic Resources” in the KB.

Description:​ This training provides a high-level view of how electronic LOCAL (IZ) collections are managed in Alma.

***For shared e-resources (part of Opt-In or ECC subscriptions), please see section 9 below for additional information. In general, most campuses will NOT need to maintain IZ e-collections for these kinds of shared e-resources. Instead, they will be added to the shared license for the existing NZ Alma e-collection, maintained by Jessica Hartwigsen at the Chancellor’s Office***

  • Understand the choices available for bibliographic records describing electronic resources in Alma (CZ records, OCLC records in NZ, vendor records).

    • See Appendix A -NZ, for more details on where records originate for the CSU in the NZ.

Descriptive records for Alma E-Collections

Used for discovery purposes in PrimoVE / OneSearch

Managing Electronic Collections

Activation

Checking CZ Task List Update Reports

  • Check the weekly updates to the CZ. These changes are applied to any active e-collections in the IZ.

    • There is a presentation available on the wiki as well documentation from Ex Libris.

CDI (replaced PCI June 2020)

Description: PCI was replaced by CDI (Central Discovery Index) in the first half of 2020. In addition to records published directly from Alma, Primo search results are also populated with records from CDI.

The Ex Libris Central Discovery Index (CDI) is a central, unified index, for scholarly and academic material worldwide. It contains over 5 billion records and many different resource types from thousands of publishers, aggregators, and repositories.

CDI is content neutral and indexes any type of subscribed, purchased or open access content that is of use for research, teaching, and learning. While CDI primarily focusses on metadata, it also indexes full text for part of the content. In addition to what is indexed, CDI encompasses a suite of services available via an API and our discovery systems, Primo and Summon.

CDI leverages a new infrastructure to provide the scale required to meet today’s needs and future requirements. This enables fast content updates and new content ingestion cycles on a large scale, continuous content enrichment, and reliable performance resulting in fast response times and other operational efficiencies.

While the ability to scale is important, operational processes focus as much on data quality. Our data excellence program focusses on the continuous improvement of processes and tools to provide high quality data. CDI is supported by the Ex Libris content services team.

In academic publishing many platforms offer the same content and provide metadata for the same records. In CDI we deduplicate these records and create one unified merged metadata record. For content from which we do not ingest metadata directly from a provider, CDI automatically provides alternative coverage from other metadata sources.

  • CSU uses Fully Flexible set up of CDI (as opposed to EasyActive). Fully Flexible allows the CSU libraries to choose which CDI records to include in the search results in PrimoVE (OneSearch).

  • Takes about 30 hours for CDI Rights updates to appear in PrimoVE (OneSearch).

    • CDI Rights are:

      • Changes in type of linking, such as Link Resolver to Link in Record.

      • Changes to Search Activation status; Active or Not Active.

      • Changes to whether or not the Full Text Available link is displayed.

Ex Libris Knowledge Article on CDI Tips and Tricks

CSU and other institution configurations and Tips and Tricks

Display Logic, Proxy, and General Electronic Services

Description: General Electronic Services (GES) provide a variety of options to end-users in the Primo online services (aka "View It") menu. Most notable is ILLiad, but other common GES include "report a problem" forms, Google Scholar searches, ERIC searches, and ProQuest dissertation searches. Display Logic allows you to control when, and for which users, different e-resources services and/or GES display to specific users.

How to articles:

Acquisitions - Invoicing

Description: Invoicing is one of the last steps in the ordering and activation workflow for e-resources. Invoices can be created manually, or automatically via EDI (depending on the vendor).

Tax Handling workflows

EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) Invoicing

Troubleshooting

Shared Acq/ERM (Opt-in and ECC) Resources

Description: Links to various resources for shared opt-in and ECC e-resource collections managed by the CO. These lists are useful in determining what each campus has subscribed to and what shared e-collections Jessica maintains in the NZ. Subscription information for Opt-in and ECC resources can be found in Consortia Manager (CM). Consortia Manager is new to the CSU in 2023.

Consortia Manager

Alma Weekly Updates to the CKB

  • Updates are sent by Jessica to all the campuses for the weekly updates applied by Ex Libris to the CZ.

ERM & ACQ Weekly Updates

  • Weekly updates sent out every Friday to alert users of changes to shared NZ e-collections, updates to NZ licenses, EZProxy stanza updates, and issues with subscribed resources. These documents are available online going back to April, 9, 2018.

Troubleshooting Best Practices and FAQ

CSU ECC & OPT-IN CONTACTS

Appendix A

Alma/Primo VE/CDI Glossary

 

  • Aggregator Package: A type of electronic collection that includes all titles (as opposed to a selective package, which includes only some of the collection’s titles).

  • Alma Link Resolver (UResolver): The Alma Link Resolver ensures that library patrons get the right links to library owned electronic content. This lesson provides an in-depth view of link resolving in Alma, including detailed demonstrations. Alma component that responds to external requests with a menu of physical, electronic, and digital services. For physical resources, requests are offered; for electronic resources, context-sensitive links are provided; for digital resources, direct links to the digital object are provided. More information available from training video. See wiki for difference between links from Alma vs Primo Central Index.

  • Auto-load Holdings: This is an integration profile that can be set up for a few e-collections. The e-collection is directly updated by a file sent by the publisher. The e-collections that can use this profile are ProQuest Ebook Central DDA, Springer Journals & Ebooks, Ovid, Elsevier Journals & Ebooks, Taylor & Francis, Project Muse.

  • Available For: This tab or label indicates which library is sharing this electronic collection or portfolio in the NZ. This label appears on the ECC and Opt-in e-collections in the NZ.

  • Cancel POL: Canceling a PO line invalidates the PO line. For more information on canceling POL’s, see the Ex Libris Alma documentation.

  • Central Discovery Index (CDI): *Live as June 2020. Ex Libris is developing a new Central Discovery Index (CDI). This unified index will support both Summon and Primo, creating the best of breed discovery index by upgrading infrastructure and capabilities from the existing Summon and Primo Central indexes. CDI is maintained in the Alma Collections, in the CDI tab under Edit Collection.

  • Close POL: Closing a PO line is used to indicate that the purchase was completed. POL’s that can be closed are “One-time PO lines that have been sent” and “Continuous PO lines waiting for renewal”

  • Collection Activation: The process of enabling access to e‐resources for patrons. Includes confirming that the library has access to the resource and setting up technical information so the public has access.

  • Community Zone (CZ): This is the Alma knowledgebase shared by the Alma community which contains electronic collections, portfolios, and bib records.

  • Electronic Collection: A collection of electronic resources that can contain packages (which include portfolios) or databases (which include URLs).

  • Electronic Core Collection (ECC): These are the resources that are negotiated, paid-for, and maintained by the CSU Chancellor’s Office. These central resources are managed in the NZ in Alma. More information about the ECC: current list of e-collections and information about what is the ECC.

  • Google Scholar Publishing: This is when the full text holdings file is sent to Google Scholar. Library holdings will appear when doing a search in Google Scholar.

  • Held by: This tab shows which library has a record for this item, physical or electronic. Usually referring to the bib record.

  • Institution Zone (IZ): This is the library’s individual inventory for bib records, portfolios, orders, licenses, user files, and circulation transactions.

  • Inventory: The resources that are owned or licensed by or associated with a particular library, institution, or consortium. All descriptive bibliographic metadata resides in the Metadata management system (MMS) with appropriate links from the inventory to the corresponding descriptive information.

  • License Management: The management of a contract between the library and a vendor for the lease of one or more copyrighted bibliographic databases or online resources. This includes creating, updating, and deleting licenses.

  • Linking tab in a Portfolio: This is the linking information used to link to a database or a journal from Alma. The Linking tab has information on the linking level for the journal or the electronic collection. Most e-collections are ARTICLE linking level but some are JOURNAL linking level. Many portfolios require a jkey or bkey to link directly to the journal. A local “parse parameter” (the term used for journal or article linking) can be added if the global “parse parameter” is not working correctly.

  • Material Type: The type of material, such as a book or electronic journal package, from which an item takes its form. Note that the material type does not control the PO line workflow and can be modified when creating/editing a PO line. An item material type manifests itself in Primo’s Get It/Details tabs.Material types are system‐defined and cannot be configured through the Alma interface.

  • Metadata Management System: The interfaces, functions, and data that define institutional systems and allow them to manipulate their descriptive metadata. The MMS includes a Community Zone and a Library Zone.

  • MMS Management Tags: Tags attached to each MMS record that define attributes to be used for further management of the record, such as exporting, publishing, and enhancing.

  • Network Zone (NZ): The Network Zone contains all the shared bib records and centrally paid-for and negotiated electronic collections. The CSU uses OCLC records for shared bib records and the CZ for shared electronic collections (ECC and Opt-in e-collections). There are three shared e-collections where the CSU uses OCLC bib records; Marcive, JSTOR DDA e-books, and Safari e-books.

  • NZ Negotiated Licenses: These are the negotiated licenses available in the NZ for ECC and Opt-in e-resources. The licenses contain the cost per library for the subscriptions to Opt-in resources as well as provide access to PDF copies of the signed agreements and spreadsheets of the title lists.

  • Opt-in Collections: These are the resources that are negotiated and maintained by the CSU Chancellor’s Office. These central resources are managed in the NZ in Alma.

  • Package/Collection/Resource: Formerly, a collection of portfolios from a specific data provider. (Analogous to SFX KB target.) Currently, the term and its functions are being combined with those of “database” to allow for more flexibility in both functionalities. Eventually, “package” and “database” will be deprecated and “electronic collection” will cover both entities.

  • Portfolio: The specific coverage, services, and link information relevant for a particular title within a package. May include administrative/access information. May be local or global. Analogous to SFX KB Object Portfolio.

  • PrimoVE: PrimoVE is the front end public facing interface to discover your holdings (print, electronic, images) from Alma (OCLC, vendor, CZ records), from external sources such as ContentDM, and from Central Discovery Index (CDI). Each CSU has its own Alma, PrimoVE and CDI to reflect its particular content; and we have the Network Zone to reflect our shared content. PrimoVE is updated with data from Alma every 6 hrs.

  • Primo Central Index (PCI): Primo Central Index is an index that includes scholarly articles, ebooks, conference proceedings, newspaper articles, and more. Review the PCI collections lists (alternative coverage, books, open access). PCI Overview in the wiki. *Discontinued use in June 2020, replaced by CDI.

  • Central Discovery Index (CD) Link In Record: 'Link in Record' delivery method, this means that the full text links come directly from the CDI record and Alma Link Resolver is never involved. To see which resources are available in CDI, see Alma documentation.

  • Provider-Neutral/Database-only records: These are the records that represent the resources or electronic collections that do not have portfolios or link to a database or website. There are CSU-specific policies for their use in the NZ.

  • Purchase Order Line (POL): The PO line is the management unit of the order. This is the order form used to order physical and electronic items as well as subscriptions, ongoing as well as one-time orders. More information about each field of the POL are defined by the Alma documentation.

  • Selective Package: A type of electronic collection that includes only some of the collection’s titles (as opposed to an aggregator package, which includes all of the e‐collection’s titles).