Ex Libris responds to general questions submitted in advance by the customers about the company and its directions.
Q: Pivotal weak system, will it be replaced?
A: We have selected a new system, called SesForce (spelling?). We are planning the implementation in Q1 2013. We'll communicate with the steering committee about the roll-out of this product.
Q: Can Ex Libris have more support staff?
A: Yes we are planning to increase the support workforce.
Q: Monthly status report about SIs that are nder development including SInb and the defect number
A: I understand you are looking for more transparency on issues and resolutions. We want to introduce a technology for creating the KB items. It will be updated for almost every incident with a new number. We will work on providing more transparency. KCS (Knowledge Centre Support) will be communicated in a few months time.
Q: Should Ex Libris be more attentive when releasing a new service pack (issues with Aleph and Primo upgrade 3.1.4)
A: Short answer is yes. We are developing KPI (key performance indicators). We also have lessons learned. We do automated testing with Solenium (?) and we will continue to do more tests. The recent Primo 4.0 release shows a significant improvement to prior releases.
Q: Documentation in html format only viewable in IE or Chrome requireing well-known security threats?
A: We create help docs using Adobe and other standard outputs. So there are other alternatives.
Q: Why not use a wiki for the documentation?
A: We'll take it up with our documentation team
Q: It would be more efficient if Ex Libris developers, support and customers used historical company knowledge in design and development...
A: We do. If you look at Alma with 10,000 components, we get some right. Of course we have some missing pieces, not necessarily that we forgot but becaues our development schedule is based on needs and we feel obliged to prioritise things. A promotion path within the company means people move accross products and take with them their prior knowledge. So we do that but we can certainly do better. This can not be automated and it's hard when we change paradigms. It requires transformation.
Q: What redress does Ex Libris offer to a situation of a customer's unsuccessful move to a cloud hosted application, as a lot of costs and disruption are involved?
A: this situation never happened to us, but we would have the most to loose from such a situation. The focus in this question is the data. What is in our centre is your data, so you are free to download back your data and take it back to your previous operations. You are also free to take it and go to another vendor.
Q: Why does Ex Libris not keep check lists of local customisations? For example SSL, Apache redirects, PDS Shibboleth
A: We have specific instructions so customisations are not over-written. There have been cases where this has happened, but we have been reviewing our processes to make sure this will not happen again
Q: Can Ex Libris update the users on the development of any negotiations with other vendors about the use of holdings data within Primo Central?
A: Ex Libris doesn't own the data and this includes Primo. As far as I know, there is a problem with one vendor who doesn't believe data belongs to libraries. This is an ongoing debate, see Carl Grant recent blog post (12 September 2012) talking about that.
Q: Can we get an update on progress with Ebsco to either provide richer metadata via the deepsearch function or progress in harvesting content? Do conversations continue between Ex Libris and Ebsco?
A: We getting closer to achieving this goal. Regarding Ebsco we continue to try and have discussions and there is an open letter. Unfortunately we are getting second hand information on what Ebsco says about our converstation but there is no other word than to say this is not true. The good news for scholarship is that we can't be highjacked by a vendor because there are alternative coverages, maybe not exactly the same but close enough to satisfy the needs of end users, hopefully.
Q: When will the Aleph community receive a response to the expansion of the OCLC control number question (incident)
A: We are aware of this and the short answer is that there is no impact on Aleph
Q: Is there going to be a collaboration between Alma and Primo Central Index knowledgeBases, since they are maintenained by different teams?
A: Primo is item level. We created a data service. teams will be consolidated for management level and what type of data. This is a good question and we will make sure the collaboration is consolidated but it will take time.
Q: How to combine Automatic Storage System for library's collections as interface with Voyager with Alma? Without such an interface moving to Alma will be impossible
A: Only 20 institutions in the whole world use Dematic but we are taking this question on board and will work on creating an interface.
Q: What reporting options are available in Alma for custom reports allowing to define parameters and columns?
A: We selected Oracle and others for tools for accessing data in Alma, so the data exposed in those systems will be available. It is a strong products and can be used with various formats. Some features are exposed via Alma itslef (security reasons) but the data can be formatted in different ways. (see also previous session on Alma analytics)
Q: What cataloguing standards and policies shall apply in the Community zone (establishing master records, avoiding duplication etc.)?
A: We are not completely there yet. We will focus more on this particular area as well as open data and have just signed an agreement. You'll start seeing results in 2013. We are looking at what licence agreements we need to aime for. We'll work with our user groups in those activities.
Q: When new enhancements requests come in for existing backend products, do Alma developers have a look at them and decide if the functionality might be useful for Alma as well?
A: The collaboration between Alma, voyager and Aleph teams works well. Every feature can not always be cross-referenced but we do look at that. Alma and Primo work together and the browsing functionality on Primo initially came from Alma. So we do it and will do it even more in the future.
Q: What is Ex Libris' position on a consortial environment for Alma?
A: We are in the process of developing the functionality for consortia customers in production in 2013. So the functionality is there and 2013 was always our planning. The important question is whether we see a place for consortia in Alma and the answer is clearly yes, even with a move to the cloud. The hybrid model with local and collaborative zone with Alma is unique and very well suited to the consortia. We are hosting webinars on September 24
Q: How do, in practice, Alma's web sesrvices and APIs (user interfaces, real time APIs...) work?
A: Moving to the cloud in Alma hasn't changed anything in terms of APIs. It is core of the product to supply that. This question is even very suprising...
Q: SFX code (perl) has been rewritten in Java to implement the link resolver functionalities of Alma, is Ex Libris going to ensure that both code bases stay consistent?
A: We have one knowledge base team that feeds content into both environments. The target services are also shared but the business logic is different because both products are different. The accumulated knowledge and experience is this field is tremendous and we'll continue the devleopment of SFX as well as moving to a new environment in Alma.
Q: What are Ex Libris future plans on EL commons and developers cooperation - when all Ex Libris software comes as a service on Ex Libris hosted servers?
A: We haven't forgotten those resources and have invested a lot. The purpose is to engage with the community and we continue to think this is the right thing, developers meet developers. We are committed to that type of cooperation. The platform is active but I could ask the question: why are you not getting more involved?
Q: What are the tendencies and/or features of the Next Gen OpenUrl approach mentioned by Shlomo in the strategy update?
A: In reality the OpenURL can be used for many different things. In terms of moving forward, the situation is messy today in terms of linking into information content but we are going more and more granular. We need to tackle that part to make it more operational and we can better link. We have a great opportunity to improve the linking, especially since we have more and more open repositories and we want better open linking, so we need to develop standards.
Q: Which directions will take Alma and Rosetta in the future since they both seem legitimat for Digital Asset Management?
A: Yes they are both appropriate but one is in the cloud the other not. Rosetta is in the long term perserveation area. In terms of basic functionality both are legitimate. Our ambition is to allow our customers to look at both platforms. With Alma the migration can be done earlier
Q: What about the preservation of research data for academic libraries?
A: We are currently working on a strategy. We will update user groups. A focus group on the research data preservation aspect will be created.
Q: What does Ex Libris think about the world market of library software and how it might develop in the next five years (example of a big American manufacturer with about 3000 customers that has been overtaken by two equity firms recently)?
A: We like competition, we can't avoid the evolution of the companies, it is a natural process. The three main questions are: How does the company manage the transition? Who is running the company? What's the products' strategy, do we develop a next generation system or not? That is the key, it's less about ownership and that's how we've been developing, that is our priority.
Finally: Tom Lehrer's Alma song on YouTube
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