November/December 2018 ULMS Update

Created by brandon dudley (Unlicensed)
Dec 13, 2018
6 min read

Project Management

 

  • Scheduled meeting with Ex Libris support with rotating topics. November’s topic was Resource Sharing, where currently open cases were discussed and future action steps agreed upon. December’s meeting focused on Primo issues, where we explored our issues with relevance ranking and the UResolver to date.

  • Check-in calls with the CSU libraries will be scheduled in December to be held in January. These will provide an opportunity for Brandon to check on your satisfaction with the ULMS and gather issues that may not yet have been communicated outside your campus involving Alma, Primo or Ex Libris.

  • Brandon is preparing an analysis of SalesForce cases created in the second part of 2018. Please send any concerns you wish communicated to Ex Libris regarding your experience with Support to him before you leave for the Winter Holiday break.

  • Ex Libris will be moving to the new Identity Service in January to manage internal users. We don’t foresee major issues arising from this work. More on this topic can be found in the following places:




Analytics

Working Group

  • The Data Viz task force demonstrated the Deans' Dashboard at the December COLD meeting. This dashboard will combine various data sources into a single Tableau account, adding contextual elements (e.g. campus FTE) where appropriate.

  • The SRU task group is working on a web application that will allow users to upload title lists and receive back enriched lists containing information such as online version or ownership by other campuses. They are currently working on ways to handle items lacking good match points (e.g. older titles) and are awaiting resolution of a data defect introduced by the November 2018 Alma release.

  • The Collection Development task group is creating reports that will contain a variety of customizable, actionable reporting tools for collection management staff to use when creating reports on behalf of Collection Development librarians, subject specialists, selectors, and others who might not typically use Alma or Alma Analytics. The expectation is these reports will require individual customization to fit each campus, due to the wide variation in fund code structures, physical locations, project requirements, etc. across the system. For this reason, the reports will be kept in a curated folder rather than provided in a dashboard. More information may be found here: https://calstate.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ULMSR/overview

  • The Committee also discussed how to best meet training needs across the system.

  • The Committee is exploring Ex Libris Benchmark Analytics. SLO has opted in, but hasn't seen results yet as it can take up to 30 days for Ex Libris to populate the data.

  • ACRL report issues have been addressed by the Committee. Please continue to let the Committee know if you run into problems producing ACRL reports in Alma.



Resource Management

Chancellor’s Office

  • Preparing Primo renorm 2018-D

  • Receiving issues from Primo/OneSearch relevancy issues form

    • mainly known item issues but getting topical searches too

  • Ongoing identifying the source, troubleshooting, and resolution of Alma/Primo issues (resource management + discovery) in Alma and in Primo back office config

  • Finalize loading of new platform for O'Reilly Safari Learning Platform: Academic edition in NZ



Working Group

  • Preliminary, open discussion of open access, freely available electronic collections

    • how collections would be selected, how to ascertain quality, who manages them, opt-in/out

    • support for collaborative collection development of electronic resources

  • Ongoing work with creating how-to documentation and resource management training guide

  • Exploring the relationship between Res Mgmt cmte and NZ Mgmt group

  • Clarifying resource management policies versus best practices/recommendations



Acquisitions & ERM

Chancellor’s Office

  • Moving forward with using Trials in the NZ. Presented NZ Trials in a Tech Services Open Forum to introduce the use of trials in the NZ and show how this tool could be used in the IZ.

    • Moving onto phase two which is to test a real trial with the Acquisition and ERM committee. Waiting for the latest trial to be negotiated with the vendor.

  • Presented the use of the ProQuest Ebook DDA/PDA e-collection integration profile in the IZ. Jeremy Hobbs at SLO tested this feature in the IZ, where ProQuest updates the DDA ebooks with a file that Alma picks up instead of manually activating the DDA ebooks. Using Jeremy’s findings, presented the setup of and conclusions for the integration profile.

  • Continue to send out ERM Weekly updates to the Tech Services listserv. Share any changes to the NZ e-collections or subscriptions to the ECC or Opt-in resources.

  • Send out the Alma CZ CKB weekly update notes and highlight areas of interest for the libraries. Also created a How-to document to help review the weekly updates, NZ ERM Trello cases, SalesForce cases and the CZ Task List.

  • Continue to update the ACQ/ERM “Getting Started” document.

  • Preparing for the migration to the new O’Reilly platform for Safari. The Alma e-collection will be live beginning of the new year and the old platform will be retired in Alma.

Working Group

  • Presented an overview of the Primo Central Index (PCI) record in a Tech Services Open Forum.

  • Adding more How-to documents to the Acquisitions and ERM wiki

    • Updating archived Tech Services/Acquisitions/ERM documents and posted to the ACQ/ERM How-to list of documents

    • New documents being added to support the Getting Started document

  • Updating the Acquisitions and ERM new staff “Getting Started” document

    • Document will link to existing training documents, videos and open forum presentations to help new staff located helpful documents to become acquainted with Alma and PCI

    • Plan to officially release the document early next year.

  • Creating new presentations for Tech Services Open Forums

    • Presentations will have more advanced training for Alma functions

      • Present creative solutions for Alma functions

      • Present on the relationship between Alma e-collections and the PCI records

  • Do an environmental scan of acquisitions and ERM workflows in current practice

    • Collect the workflows and share practices with libraries

  • Create a list of users that would like to participate in the NZ Trials.

    • Currently includes users from Collection Development and EAR.

    • ACQ/ERM testing NZ trials with a live trial from Oxford




Resource Sharing

Chancellor’s Office

  • Worked with Jeremy Hobbs at Cal Poly and David Walker at the CO to create an online version of Cleanslips, the program that formats shipping spreadsheets into stickers and bookstraps. Should be ready for release sometime in December.

  • Convened campuses with ASRSs to fix an ongoing issue with temporary move request processing. Long Beach came up with a solution that was demonstrated to the other 3 campuses via zoom. Resolved two salesforce cases opened by SF and Sonoma.

  • Working with Channel Islands and Ex Libris on a persistent issue that causes lending requests to go off the rails and only partially ship the item creating problems on the borrowing side of the request.

  • Coordinated efforts to fix an issue where blank resource sharing requests were being created causing logistical problems and patron frustration. Partial fix applied in early November. Monitoring case to fully correct the issue.

  • Shut down CSU+ lending for libraries with campus closures due to fires or poor air quality. Closely monitoring campus closure statuses and staff levels.

  • Tested new Alma resource sharing functionality from the November release for lost resource sharing items. Submitted and monitored cases about errors resulting from the update.

  • Had a call with ExL support focusing on open resource sharing cases. Prepared a case review for the call and responded to the increased Ex Libris case activity resulting from the call.

Working Group

  • Held open forum on 11/13

    • updates on campus closures due to fire and air quality

    • new analytics reports

    • New feature from October update: Check for Duplicates When Creating Borrowing Requests

    • Reminder to use courier issue reporting form

  • Creating task force with fulfillment functional committee to finalize walk-in patron policy and privileges.

  • Continuing work on implementing ILLiad as the partner of last resort at test campus (SLO) - facing some technical issues, working with library IT to solve them.

  • Updated webpage related to holiday closures.

  • Creating unexpected closure best practices based on information gathered from campus ILL practitioners.

Fulfillment

Chancellor’s Office

  • Worked closely with the working group on strategic goals document.



Working Group

  • Verifying Fulfillment analytics reports and provided comments to analytics task force on ACRL reports.

  • Hosted open forum scheduled on 11/27 - panel discussion of Leganto.

  • Completed strategic goals document and sent up to the Steering Committee for review.

  • Planning CSU-wide environmental scan of innovative fulfillment-related campus projects and changes in policies and best practices made since going live with Alma

Discovery

Chancellor’s Office

  • Primo renorm 2018-D will begin on December 20.

  • The Primo November 2018 release is now on Sandbox and will be pushed into production on December 30.

Working Group

  • UX task force

  • Link Resolver task force

    • The group has met several times to discuss best technical approach. Dave Walker has developed proof-of-concept examples that employ either PHP or AngularJS (or combination).

  • Relevance Ranking Task Force

    • The group had its first meeting in late October and met again more recently to discuss how to gather known item search issues from CSU libraries to analyze and communicate to Ex Libris in the Spring.