April 2021 ULMS Update

Created by
brandon dudley (Unlicensed)
Apr 30, 2021
7 min read

Project Management

  • Working through the top issues reported by each functional area in the Satisfaction Survey with Ex Libris product management. ERM is currently underway, with the other committees going through in turn.

  • Primo VE evaluation continues through the spring. Testing has begun and is planned to last into May.

Analytics

  • Working Group

    • We are working on putting together a report from the recent SUSHI/Usage Data survey and coming up with a plan for training and documentation for libraries on using SUSHI and Usage Data in Analytics.

Resource Management

  • Working Group

    • VE Configuration

      • Members of the RM group who are part of the Norm Rules Joint Task Force are monitoring or involved in building/testing Drools for configuring Primo VE

    •  ELUNA Enhancements Vote

      • Resource Management folk have discussed ELUNA Enhancements in the current ballot and will point out (via a Technical Services message) ballot items of interest, some which the committee endorses for the CSU’s vote and for the Libraries that are individual ELUNA members.

    • ExL Customer Satisfaction Survey

      • Discussion and preparation of use-case information for the issues mentioned in Resource Management.

Acquisitions

  • Chancellor’s Office

    • Continued update of NZ licenses for renewed resources.

      • Adding new shared e-collections for some renewals.

        • ACS -CE&N and ACS Guide to Scholarly Communication

  • Working Group

    • Discussing alternative communication methods with committee to foster ongoing discussions within acquisitions community

ERM

  • Chancellor’s Office

    • Continued update of CDI group settings for NZ CDI collections.

    • Creating and updating CSU CDI documentation.

      • Creating a CDI management table in wiki

      • Asking libraries for any local information (troubleshooting tips) they could share with everyone.

    • Created list of CDI contacts for each library so the library can make changes to their group setting for an NZ CDI collection.

    • New Open Access e-collections added to NZ.



  • Working Group

    • CDI Watch party 2 - Alma activations settings: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=video&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj6_eqbnOrvAhUUsZ4KHdQVB9gQtwIwAHoECAYQAw&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DYAZ7wBBTzTQ&usg=AOvVaw24S3BeVAVf8xLSInrQoE9G

    • Gale Linking update

      • From Jessica on Slack:“Ex Libris Development team has completed an initial assessment of this issue. After taking into account a number of factors including impact, scope, technical complexity, functional prerequisites, and existing priorities, Development team has set a preliminary target date for resolving this issue no later than May 2021.

      • Please note that this is a tentative estimate only, and is subject to change due to ongoing review and assessment of Operations priorities. We will notify you if there are any further changes to the target date.”

    • ERM Top 3 Issues submitted to Ex Libris as SalesForce #'s: 00941104, 00941106, 00941107

      • Metadata errors in CDI (and the CZ)Metadata errors in CDI and the CZ take far too long to resolve.  Resolving any CDI (or CZ) metadata error takes appreciably longer than updating an OCLC record (which takes minutes).  Our expectation has been set by a decades-long industry standard. Submitting Salesforce cases on a record by record basis is wildly inefficient and time-consuming.  Additionally, CDI records originating from an inactive CDI collection diminish user experience. Libraries would like the option to have those records removed.

        • We want a way to resolve metadata errors more easily than submitting a Salesforce case, ideally by ourselves.

        • We want to even out resolution times between vendors (for example, resolving Ebsco metadata errors takes far longer than other vendors).

        • We need tools for identifying the source of the metadata (rather than just the source collection in CDI, which we have been told by Ex Libris may not be the source of the metadata). These tools should be easy to use and have documentation.

        • We need training to read the CTO record to understand it and to be able to identify what the metadata errors may be.

      • CDI Updates/Indexing is taking too long. It can take one to two weeks (sometimes longer) for the CDI index to update after making changes to the CDI settings. This delay makes managing e-book or media collections in CDI more difficult given the churn in these collections.

        • We want CDI updates and indexing to be faster, ideally closer to 48 hours than even 72.

    • Community Zone Updates and records are causing extra work for ERM and Cataloging Staff. For example, Oxford, Project Muse, and Ethnic NewsWatch were updated with archived coverage data instead of current coverage.  In these cases, there were extra records added with incorrect archived coverages. One record would have current date coverage and a second record for the same title was also added with the archived coverage.  This necessitated the manual removal of these extra records.

      • Other examples: In Academic Core Plus, Ex Libris updated every portfolio with the wrong linking so we had to correct the linking for all of our subscribed portfolios. CSU Fullerton reported that 450 records were removed by Ex Libris from their Alexander Street Press American History in Video collection during a recent CZ update.  Another CZ update broke the Safari e-book parser, which took two weeks for Ex Libris Support to address and meant a loss of access to one of our largest e-book packages for a significant amount of time. There have recently been higher than normal reports of broken links in the OA e-collections, necessitating manual intervention and individual reporting to Ex Libris Support.

      • Additionally, frequently ebook records loaded from the CZ lack basic access points such as subject headings or anything other than a title and author. To make the records usable for patrons, campuses would have to manually improve the records, or choose not to use the CZ records and import the data from somewhere else, which is more work than using a CZ collection. If there is going to be a collection in the CZ, the metadata should conform to a basic record standard that includes enough information for patrons to actually discover the item, otherwise, there is no point in having the record in our system.

        • We want CZ updates to be accurate.  When a CZ collection update has errors, Ex Libris should take the responsibility to fix the collection in such a way that their entire user base isn't tasked with manually updating collections to address the error, or deleting their collection (often with local information), reimporting the entire CZ Collection, and manually adjusting portfolios to reflect local changes (again).

        • We want ebook CZ collections to have a title, author, original publication date, and subject headings at the bare minimum, as these are needed for basic discovery. We would prefer to have records comply with the full-level OCLC encoding standard. https://www.oclc.org/bibformats/en/onlinecataloging.html#levels

    • How PrimoVE merges multiple catalog records

    • Troubleshooting CDI issues

      • Central Discovery Index (CDI) - Troubleshooting Tips and Tricks -

    • How to view the CTO record: 

      • only works in PrimoVE

      • append a record URL with “&displayCTO=true” sans quotation marks at the end of the URL    

      • Link in record example (display CTO link shows under the title)

Memory and Identity - Rivka Galchen and David Linden - https://csu-sdsu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma991071953449202901&context=L&vid=01CALS_SDL:01CALS_SDL&lang=en&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&adaptor=Local Search Engine&tab=Everything&query=any,contains,Memory and Identity - Rivka Galchen and David Linden&offset=0&displayCTO=true

  • Link Resolver example:

Extraterrestrials in the Stacks - https://csu-sdsu.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=cdi_gale_infotracacademiconefile_A653528641&context=PC&vid=01CALS_SDL:01CALS_SDL&lang=en&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&adaptor=Primo Central&tab=Everything&query=any,contains,alien abduction&offset=0&displayCTO=true



Resource Sharing

  • Chancellor’s Office

    • Requested monthly meetings with Unity to discuss issues. 

    • Isolated GES rules that hide CSU+ in Primo VE and made duplicate rules with slightly different configuration to use while testing CSU+ in Primo VE. Configured the new GES at all campuses who said they wanted me to configure in their Alma instance. Sent documentation to all other libraries so they could add the fix themselves. 

    • Surveyed CSU Resource Sharing staff on their thoughts on adopting Rapido. Currently writing a report on the findings. 

    • Discussed a pilot with the State University of New York (SUNY) where we will test consortia-to-consortia resource sharing in Alma. Multiple campuses have volunteered for the pilot. 

  • Working Group

    • Working on finalizing issue descriptions for meeting with ExLibris

    • Met with UC courier team and found out the team has regularly scheduled meetings with Unity to talk service issues. Chris has requested monthly meetings with Unity that would include RS Manager, RSFC chair and vice-chair, and RSFC member designated to manage Unity problem reporting form submissions.

    • Continuing to look into feasibility of using the resource sharing request API to accommodate Cal State Walk-in users.

    • Looking at resource sharing related enhancements. Will recommend 2-3 to our community of practice by end of week.

    • We have begun testing CSU+ requesting in Primo VE. Will continue to test and Chris will report issues to ExLibris.



Fulfillment

  • Chancellor’s Office

    • Continued to work on documenting Alma issues to Ex Libris.

    • Reviewed Alma enhancements. 

  • Working Group

    • Continued to work on documenting our Alma issues for ExLibris.

    • Hosted the Spring Fulfillment Open Forum with presentations on Digitization and Walk-in Users. The recording and notes are posted to the Fulfillment confluence site

    • Reviewed the Alma enhancements. Our vote recommendation will be emailed to the Access Listserv.



Discovery

  • Working Group

    • April is the designated month for data collection during the Primo VE evaluation. All campuses should aim to have all data submitted by Friday April 30th for it to be considered. The final decision as to whether the CSU system moves to VE or stays with Primo Back Office will be made by the DFC in late May. If the decision is to Go VE, a tentative go-live date for VE to be in production is Monday June 21st. As a reminder, the timeline for the evaluation can be seen at

      • Detailed discussion on the testing plan can be found in the recorded 5th Go VE Forum: Links to the testing forms have been provided to the campus Primo/Primo VE admins at each library. Most testing and evaluation data relies on their expertise and input. However, there are two testing areas where multiple responses per library are welcomed, you may find them immediately below:

    • PRIMO VE Front End Usability Survey (keep in mind that your library may not have VE fully configured, check with your campus Primo admin if you have any questions) -

    • Primo vs Primo VE Results and Relevancy (keep in mind that your library may not have VE fully configured, check with your campus Primo admin if you have any questions) -

    • Unrelated to VE, Ex Libris has suppressed the display of certain racial slurs. See their ‘Policy Regarding Subject Headings in CDI’ for details: The title of the policy is a misnomer because as best we can tell the suppressed terms were introduced via author-supplied keywords; they are not valid LCSH data. How and why such keywords get added to the records displayed to end users as “Subject Headings” is beyond the scope of this message but Chair Gardner recommends reading Masked by trust : bias in library discovery if anyone is interested in the details.

      • This information is of particular importance for librarians working with the sociology, history, and linguistics fields because cursory examination of results including the now-suppressed terms comes predominantly from those three fields.