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Alma 2 years on
Assessing the impact of Alma at The University of Manchester
Ciaran TalbotLibrary Systems Manager
• Challenges faced• Changes in workflows• Workarounds• Use of Analytics• Use of APIs• Questions
The University of Manchester
• 40,000 students• 10,000 staff• Largest single-site university in the UK• Faculties
• Engineering and Physical Sciences• Humanities• Life Sciences• Medical & Human Sciences
The University of Manchester Library
• 11 library sites
• Main Library visits ~1million/year
• Is one of the UK’s National Research Libraries
• Large Special Collections at the John Rylands Library
July 2013
Talis Alto(LMS)
Talis Prism(Catalogue)
Primo(Vertical search)
SFX(link resolver)
Alma Primo
July 2013
Talis Alto(LMS)
Talis Prism(Catalogue)
Primo(Vertical search)
SFX(link resolver)
Alma Primo
Primo challenges
The Researcher Experience Study
• “…as a matter of urgency, seek to resolve the problems that have arisen relating to the performance of its Library search service…”
• “…failure to find books, journal articles and other material known to be in the collection…”
• Ouch!
Primo challenges
What did we do to fix it?
• Boost items from our physical collection
• Removed duplicate e-resources
• Fixed parent/child linking
• Removed 856 field links from physical records• Improved metadata to ensure e and p records
merged correctly
Primo challenges
Did it have an effect?
Primo challenges
Impact on usage
Primo becomes primary search tool
Primo challenges
What are we doing next?
• Begin iterative usability testing
• Further look and feel changes
• Bring Library Chat box into Primo
• Enhance personalisation
• Enhance discoverability via other search
interfaces
Change to fulfillment
Simplify!
1 night
2 night
4 week
End of day
3 hour 12 week
weekend
1 week
Standard
High Demand
Loans by month per year
Volume of returnsLending Team actually
hidden by book mountains at this
point
What do staff think?
“Configuration was challenging and progress was slow in delivering adequate fulfilment functionality but two years down the line most elements of fulfilment operate adequately and we are beginning to see some interesting developments on the road map.”
Sarah - Customer Services Co-ordinator (Lending Support)
Improved user management
Staff system
Student system
Integration Hub Alma
Access Control System
(turnstiles)
Central IT Services Library
Single Point of Truth
Create/update user API
What do staff think?
“The move to Alma provided us with the opportunity to streamline our library membership processes resulting in staff time spent on data input being almost halved. It also prompted the University’s Systems Integration team to increase the efficiency of customer data feeds to Alma resulting in almost real time updates to library user accounts.”
Natalie - Customer Services Co-ordinator
Impact on workflows
• eBooks move to Collection Management• Import process• PDAs (Patron Driven Acquisition
cycles)
• But it is a workaround• Because we’re not using the CZ
(Community Zone)
What do staff think?
“Alma has allowed us to expand our areas of responsibility, moving into e-book activation, set manipulation, importing metadata, creating Normalization rules, indeed, taking more of a proactive approach to Metadata Management without having to rely so heavily on our Digital Systems team.”
Andrew - Metadata Management and Discovery Team Leader
What do staff think?
“It is particularly useful to have order information and material detail in the same system, and connected by a single click. It is also a huge advantage to have print and electronic content together in the same system, which allows for sophisticated reporting on all the Library’s collections using Alma’s powerful Analytics tool.”
Tim - Electronic Resources Co-ordinator
Life with Alma – 2 years on
• Devolution and ‘shift left’
Collection Management
Collection Management
IT Support
Lending Teams
Finance Team
Stock moves
Importing e-resources
Self-service support
Reporting
Year end rollover
What do staff think?
“The invoice process has been well received by the Purchasing team and is seen as being easier than on our previous system. […] The system isn’t perfect and there are still areas where we would like to have enhancements/refinements.”
Louise (Finance Office Team Manager)
“But it isn’t perfect”
• Resource Sharing• Lending workflow not used
“But it isn’t perfect”
• Resource Sharing• Lending workflow not used
• Physical item requests• Issues with queues• How it alerts patrons to curtailed loans
• Took longer than anticipated to setup the bibliographic/holding data exports to external aggregators in place
• Recent Analytics availability
Analytics
• Collection development and profiling project
Analytics
• Collection development and profiling project
• Collection profiling
• Next step is to feed Alma data into the University’s data warehouse
Alma(LMS after July 2013)
Talis(LMS before July 2013)
SentryAccess Control System
UoMData Warehouse
NSS ScoresDegree results
APIs
Academic adds record to institutional repository
(‘eScholar’)
eScholar creates a Purchase Order in Alma
Governance
• LMSA (Library Management System Advisory Group)
• Distribute responsibility for release notes
Acquisitions
Finance
Resource Sharing
Colle
ction
M
anag
emen
t
Lending
What we learned?
• “Free your mind”
• Simplify your processes
• The move to Primo had a bigger impact than anticipated
• Systems team are no longer the gatekeepers of change
• Embracing new skillsets
What next?
• Move to data driven decisions
• Focus on Primo
• Automate away the repetitive tasks
• It’s all about the integrations (APIs)
What next?
• Continue to collaborate and push development
• We are working on mobile apps which integrate with Alma
• Facilitate increased streamlining of workflows
