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Northeastern University
(Boston, Mass.) & Alma
Amira Aaron
Associate Dean, Scholarly Resources
IGELU Oxford, September 2014, Session 10
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About Northeastern University
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Global research university
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Over 26,000 FTE in urban Boston location
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Additional sites in Seattle & Charlotte, NC – will be others
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Large online presence for courses & professional education
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Main library (SNELL) & Law Library
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Member of the Boston Library Consortium
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Over 92% of purchases are electronic – Buy very little print
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Former III Millennium user for many years
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Heavy user of local and consortial demand-driven acquisitions
for e-books
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Alma Early Adopter
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Contract signed December 2011 – Went live July 2013
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Alma benefits that we considered:
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Cloud system – no local maintenance, upgrades, etc.
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Open, modern platform – flexible, service-oriented architecture
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Reporting and analysis tools, including usage information
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Do away with print and electronic silos – wanted concentration on
electronic processes
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Separate back-end and discovery layers
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Promise of cooperative efforts & sharing of data with others
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Promise of better workflows and integration with vendors
Difficult migration from Millennium (second customer with
very little documentation or detailed knowledge)
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THE REALITY - Positive
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General:
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System in the cloud, and being able to access Alma from
anywhere, is a definite positive!
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“Real-time” information for allocations, expenditures,
encumbrances & available balances – fiscal functionality
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Automated processes & workflows
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Alma/Banner connection works well – eliminates manual keying
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Managing funds – ease of use; add/update allocations to funds is
streamlined, ability to identify records to disencumber
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Set functionality – copying and sharing sets, new functionality of
turning a logical set into an itemized set for updating
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Ability to apply custom normalization rules for batch record
enhancement and import
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Analytics is powerful and has the potential to be an excellent tool.
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THE REALITY - Positive
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Some specifics:
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Link to LC MARC format documentation within Metadata editor
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Alma maintains a record of the notices sent to patrons
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Simple process for adding a proxy borrower to a patron’s account
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Easy access navigation buttons for circulation transactions
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Linking functionality in Alma – e.g., linking orders, portfolios and
licenses
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New ability to display licensing terms in Primo
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Ability to export lists from the system
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Ability to run jobs on large batches of records for updating
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EDI invoicing works well
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Simple to input a manual invoice
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Usage statistics – SUSHI or import – promised Analytics report on
cost per use (almost there)
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THE REALITY – Less Positive
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General
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Integration of various formats (URM) not yet realized; silos still
exist – inability to reach all data from all functions of Alma
Electronic resource functionality not yet fully developed
(disappointing that SFX functionality was not replicated) –
licensing functionality is especially weak
Authorizations are not granular enough and often not logical –
need a read-only authorization!
System is still very rigid as to making changes, corrections or
editing records
Inconsistency in necessary actions, terms and data presented
across the system
Material types are still confusing and too many different lists!
Limits of 5000 for export & loading to create sets are not adequate
Documentation is still often incomplete, confusing or inaccurate
Need a list of known issues to save everyone’s time!
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THE REALITY – Less Positive
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Some specifics:
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Batch processes, such as Patron User loads, too brittle – one error
aborts the load – should just get reported out
Reliance on MarcEdit and Excel to perform tasks previously done
in ILS – additional time and staff training
Analytics - not reliable - still can’t report consistently on some
important fields (e.g. “reporting code”) or combine
print/electronic; problem with various counts
Audit trail is harmed by data, such as receipt date and original
location, being deleted when an item is deleted
Course reserves – entire workflow is daunting – easy to miss
steps and make mistakes! Suppressed records still show as on
reserve.
Not able to customize notices at Library or Desk levels.
Order record data sets functionality is lacking
Unable to link at article level for local/standalone portfolios
Title searching via “Search External Resources” is difficult
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Conclusions Thus Far
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Moving to Alma as an early adopter has ultimately put the
Northeastern University libraries in a very good place
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After a difficult two years, we are starting to realize the potential
of Alma in many areas, including staff savings
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Both Alma and Primo are improving rapidly – sometimes almost
too rapidly for us to keep up with!
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It has been a definite learning process, both for us as a customer
and for Ex Libris
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We are somewhat concerned about support issues and the
ability of Ex Libris to keep up with the tremendous growth of
Alma, both staff support and the technical infrastructure
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It will be exciting to see where we go from here and if the
promise of cooperative use of Alma and sharing of data can be
realized in the future