Alma - early adopters' experience

Notes from IGeLU 2013 Conference, Berlin

University of Bolzano Library

Reasons to adopt Alma: Future oriented solution for whole integration of all resources in every phase of the life-cycle, support for library processes (core business) including analytics, networking & best practice exchange of similar libraries etc. Joined at an early stage , so needed flexibility & change management. Took opportunity to simplify rules & policies in the data migration process.

Timeline went from April 2012 (Alma training) to Jan 2013 (Alma live). Started at the circulation/fulfillment stage, even if it sounds strange, it was good to manage staff anxiety, followed by cataloguing and rest of the migration (electronic resources etc.).In the first months, work on workflow revisions, configuration revisions, changing opinion about things thought of before moving to Alma, troubleshooting, optimisation etc. Resource management area to clean up records etc. More recently work on analytics.

Positive points and changes: Overal positive experience, good cooperation despite time pressure, solution-oriented and pragmatic approach. Lessons learned are that Cloud Computing requires a new approach to software, so monthly updates, no traditional test environment so all change is made in production. Occuring problems have to be notified "to the Cloud" instead of IT department. Reporting and controlling is improved with positive impact on the organisation in decision-making. Standardised workflows. Cleaning up work requires manual input.

Open and critical issues: Activation of electronic resources is very complexe (some databases are still missing), lack of functionalities of Alma Uresolver, still developments required for analytics, batch updates and set creation not always easy, migration of subscriptions and entering of acquisitions data, customisation in workflows, cataloguing or display of data is still needed, are the major points.

Northeastern University Boston

Why Alma? System that can handle electronic resources, better analytics, no local hardware maintenance, financial incentive to become an early adopter.

Timeline and challenges: April to July 2013 for actual implementation, with a 9-month overall period, quite challenging! Mostly because there was no on-site visit, missing context in WebEx training, missing and developing data migration documentation, confusing project management plans. Other main challenge was that configurating Alma without it going live wasn't available.

Two months live... Optimistic about the future of Alma, happy to have hot fixes and monthly release cycle, forces to look at workflows, already impressed with analytics. Biggest disappointment is in e-resource management, in particular, Uresolver still needs lots of customisation, lack of clarity about the knowledge base (same as sfx?) portfolio management is difficult and time-consuming, missing stability and flexibility in licensing. In addition, missing flexibility & customisation options in user roles & permissions, order records, licensing and notices (can only be customised at the institutional, not library, level). The software is not intuitive, some workflows are clunky. However, still very optimistic! Happyy to work with Ex Libris to improve it and to build a strong community.