Trevor A. Dawes
We have been using Voyager for a few years. The format in which we collect our resources has become more diverse and we needed a more effective system. We used SFX and Meridian, Dspace for our digital collections. We have several interfaces for our users, using both Primo and Summon, as well as the classic OPAC.
Our process of selecting Alma is probably not very different from the other speakers. We wanted to make the management of our resources simpler. We had too many silos and different types of records. Ex Libris approached us a few years ago to ask if we wanted to be early developper partners. So we agreed. We were quite confident there weren't other systems as developped as Alma.
We had the opportunity to provide critical analysis to Ex Libris about Alma. We are waiting next year for the implementation but that is less to do with the product as with some concerns from our staff and users. We will plan on using Primo as discovery service.
If you are concerned about Alma being a cloud system, we didn't have that concern because we had already moved to the cloud. We see this as moving some expertise to limit staff cost. We want to take advantage of automated workflows. We have hopes for easier acquisitions workflows altough we also expect this to be the most challenging.
In our testing so far, we have several staff testing. Alma is designed to automate process and allow customers to have greater control over the activities. In our current environment we have very manual processes, so there is quite a lot of apprehension of letting go of that type of control . We have to get our staff used to the fact they will be working in a very different way.
Staff include both line staff as well as managers. We have time to plan for our implementation in 10 months. We had great support from Ex Libris, online meetings as well as seminars. The documentation still needs some work but it has got better thanks to feedback. We need explanation of consequences of changes in activities and certain aspects of Alma. We have the opportunity to try, fail and try again but the documentation is really important.
Some of the staff have become very adept at using Alma. In some areas we've not been able to perform workflow testing. We are reviewing the migration of our data next month. Some areas need tweeking but they are not major areas. Because we manage this process outside of Voyager, we are planning to use Alma for course reserve functionality next year.
One of Alma's goals is to simplify circulation. We initially tried to simplify some activities in Voyager. We realised we had a large amount of policies and activities, with some duplication. We worked with the circulation staff on campuses. We were only partly successful! This was an opportunity to look at our policies and try and implement some changes. We've managed to reduce by about half our number of policies in Alma!
We haven't completed the testing of importing the records from OCLC but hope to do so soon, as well as student data. The electronic transactions seem to be running on schedule. We expect the automotated processes in acquisition to work very well.
Reporting in Alma is very effective. They can be viewed as well as exported. There are templates that can be used. This functionality will help to free up staff time and reports can be prepared on a regular basis.
General data migration experience: we have had a large amount of our data migrated. The first round were partly successful. some acquisitions data didn't migrate correctly. We had to do some vendor record clean-up. We had to match as best we could the records and that was complicated and time-consuming. We had a lot of locations and this had to be mapped to the new concept of libraries on Alma. We had to evaluate the impact of this mapping.
We hope to correct some of these issues with the next migration. We had to make decisions on the mapping and that was done with some managers. We haven't done an extensive of data in Voyager but did some bibliographic clean up last year as well as the circulation policies as mentioned.
Overall I'd describe our experience positive, especially for the e-resources. Our head of cataloguing is thrilled with the automating rules. Our public services staff expressed concerns of the lack of functionalities in Primo. Some of the functionality they'd like to see includes call number browsing but some of this functionality is coming with the next release of Primo and we're looking forward to that. The requesting functionality is well integrated in Alma. Alma is at a point where it's being used by some libraries. We've been woring with Ex Libris for a long time and the collaboration has been very good. We had to find some compromise but that has worked well. For example we were initially reporting using spreadsheets but that grew up too quickly so we then used Pivotal, although that will be changing soon as well! But it has helped for the reporting and an improved communication.
Some of our staff are expressing testing fatigue and are hoping to move to Alma soon.
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