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Evolution to Alma: Northeastern Library Transformation

Explore Northeastern's transition to Alma for enhanced library management, collaboration, and innovation. Learn about challenges, milestones, and future prospects.

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Evolution to Alma: Northeastern Library Transformation

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  1. About Northeastern The Boston campus stands on the site of the first World Series, held in 1903. Tickets were $.50

  2. Snell Library • Most of collection budget spent on electronic • Distance education & satellite campuses growing • Campus legal very risk-averse

  3. Our Systems Before Alma • III Millennium ILS & ERM (Oracle) • TDNet TOUResolver & KnowledgeBase • EBSCO Discovery Service • III Millennium Web OPAC

  4. Why Alma? • Our previous system was based on the management of print resources • Library staff spend time doing more and more duplicate work • Inability to easily extract critical management information and reports from the system • Previous system was a closed system and the Library is severely hampered by not being able to access its own data and use it in new, innovative ways

  5. Why Alma? • Alma is a “web-scale” library management system that facilitates collaboration with other libraries • We really like the idea of sharing community metadata • Northeastern would not need to purchase or maintain local hardware and servers for the cloud-based system • Interoperability with other Northeastern and vendor systems • Alma is designed to support new models of acquisitions, including e-preferred, patron-driven, etc

  6. Why Alma? • Alma will offer significant management information and reporting as a standard module, including usage information, cost per use. • We would like to be able to report statistical information to ACRL and others in a more efficient manner • There was a strong financial incentive as early adopters as well as oppourtunity to shape the product development

  7. Implementation Milestones • Project start: October, 2012 • First data extract: January, 2013 • Functional workshop: February, 2013 • Analytics training: March, 2013

  8. Implementation Milestones • Revised acq data extract: April, 2013 • Final data extract: June, 2013 • Go-live: July, 2013 • Certification training: July, 2013

  9. Challenging Implementation • Missing context in WebEx training • O Alma expertise, where art thou? • More onsite visits please! • Missing and developing data migration docs • Project management plans

  10. Challenging Implementation • Please, please, please let me get what I want: access to configurations before go-live • Tough migration process from non-EXL products • 3rd Party integrations a moving target • Certifiably… certified?

  11. Two months live… • Optimistic about the future of Alma • Still excited about URM model • Happy to have hot fixes and monthly release cycle • Forces us to look at workflows • Already impressed with Analytics and see potential for it to be even more powerful

  12. Two months live… Disappointed by the state of e-resource management • Uresolver: lots of customization needed • Knowledge Base: not the same as SFX? • Portfolio management: difficult and time consuming • Licensing: missing stability and flexibility

  13. Two months live… • Resource Management challenges • Metadata editor is still slow and awkward • Big sets & global updates are still difficult for us • No workflows have been improved…yet

  14. Two months live… • Missing flexibility & customization options • User roles and permissions • Order records • Licensing • Notices

  15. Two months live… • UI & UX needs improvement • Not intuitive • Course reserves & other core workflows clunky • Portfolio editor awkward • Metadata editor

  16. Two months live… • But we are still VERY optimistic! • Convinced that Alma is the future • Excited about partnering with ExL to improve it • Eager to see more sites go live and build a strong community

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