Electronic Collections Managed Centrally by CARLI in the Network Zone

The Alma Network Zone (NZ) supports sharing of electronic collections to multiple institutions in the network such that active resources appear automatically for library patrons in Primo VE. This functionality enables CARLI to activate collections once, centrally, without having to duplicate the work of importing records or managing activations and deletions at the institution level across all participating institution.

This page documents the collections shared centrally by CARLI. Libraries that participate in sharing these collections should not normally need to activate the collections separately in their institution zones.

CARLI Ebook Program

The consortial CARLI Ebook Program provides full-text access to ebooks for all CARLI Governing members. CARLI has activated collections in the Network Zone for both current and previous programs.

• EBSCOhost Ebooks (approximately 2,000 titles purchased in 2000)
  • CARLI has activated the EBSCOhost Ebooks collection from the Alma Community Zone, and titles that are activated match CARLI entitlements.
• ProQuest Ebook Central (approximately 3,400 titles purchased in 2014 as part of the EBL eBook Patron Driven Acquisitions Pilot, along with member purchases in 2017 and 2018)
  • CARLI has activated the ProQuest Ebook Central collection from the Alma Community Zone; titles that are activated match CARLI entitlements.
  • I-Share member libraries that also have their own Ebook Central collections are encouraged to use autoholdings in order to keep both CARLI and institutional entitlements accurate.
• Oxford University Press & Partner Presses (Includes 2022-2023 titles as well as perpetual access titles purchased in 2021 and 2022)
  • CARLI manages this collection directly, using MARC records obtained through WorldCat Collection Manager.
• Wiley Online Books (Includes 2022-2023 titles as well as perpetual access titles purchased in 2021 and 2022)
  • CARLI manages this collection directly, using MARC records obtained through WorldCat Collection Manager.

CARLI Fully-Funded Resources

CARLI has activated each of the fully-funded databases for all I-Share members via the NZ. These include the following EBSCOhost resources with EBSCO's short name in parentheses.

CARLI purchases for all members:

Please see this spreadsheet for Illinois State Library and CARLI EBSCO  list of purchases) (as of 8/16/2024) aND  aLMA dATABASE tYPE & ebsco pACKAGES

Additionally, CARLI has activated the collections corresponding to the full-text and streaming content collections for the fully-funded perpetual access collections for all I-Share members.

• HarpWeek, 1857-1912
• Historical Statistics of the United States
• Mary Ann Liebert Journals (journal content from 2005-2009)
• Sage E-Journal 2007 Deep Backfile Collection (journal content through 1998)
• Sage Knowledge (62 reference titles from 2003-2007)
• Springer Medicine E-Books (approximately 1,300 titles from 2005-2010)

Open Education Resources (OER)

CARLI is a member of the Open Education Network (OEN), a consortium of colleges and universities working to advance open textbook initiatives. OEN supports the Open Textbook Library, a searchable online catalog of complete textbooks available for faculty and students to freely use, adapt and distribute to best meet the needs of their courses. Open textbooks can be downloaded at no cost or printed inexpensively.

CARLI has activated the Open Textbook Library collection, which is curated by the University of Minnesota in the Alma Community Zone. Resources will appear automatically in I-Share member libraries' Primo VE discovery instance with a search of "Open Textbook Library" (including quotes).

Open Access Collections

See Open Access Materials Program for selection criteria and history of Open Access/Free E-Collections for the Network Zone.

Network Zone (NZ) Open Access/ Free E-Collections active as of 08/30/2024

Collections Purchased by Groups of I-Share Members

ERead Illinois

eRead Illinois is a cooperative collection program that expands access to ebooks to residents of Illinois through their public, academic, school and special libraries. The program is currently coordinated by the Reaching Across Illinois Library System (RAILS) and is funded by participating members. CARLI participants access the collection of ebooks and audio books on the Axis360 platform. 

CARLI staff update the collection in the network zone monthly, following the release of updated MARC records from RAILS. Titles held in the collection appear in each participating member's Primo VE discovery instance, and titles will also appear to users that search with an "all I-Share libraries" scope. In Alma repository searches, participating libraries may view these titles in their institution by using a combined inventory search. 

NILRC OverDrive Consortium

The members of the NILRC OverDrive Consortium collaboratively manage a shared collection of ebooks and audio books hosted on the OverDrive platform. The collection is funded by participating members, and the collection is updated in the network zone monthly, with cataloging provided by consortium members. Titles held in the collection appear in each participating member's Primo VE discovery instance, and titles will also appear to users that search with an "all I-Share libraries" scope. In Alma repository searches, participating libraries may view these titles in their institution by using a combined inventory search.

Technical Details for Centrally-Managed Collections

Inventory Management Groups

Alma includes functionality for sharing and distributing access to collections of resources to subsets of members. Inventory management groups contain lists of members who are eligible to receive access to electronic collections, and when a group of members is added to a collection, that collection and its contents are inherited by the members from the network. For most collections listed above, collections are shared to an inventory group containing all members. Some individual collections noted above are only shared among selected members. When a member is added to or removed from a group, Alma and Primo VE may require several days to re-index the inventory from the collection and the Primo VE.

Cataloging Record Duplication

The collections noted above are activated and managed based on the bibliographic data available. In some cases, CARLI has selected the Community Zone collection and the records contained therein. In other cases, CARLI or groups of libraries provide cataloging records for the collection. Whenever possible, CARLI will work to ensure that records in all collections will conform to CARLI's Cooperative Cataloging Guidelines (e.g., full-level cataloging, contain OCLC control numbers). 

With records provided from different sources and different cataloging standards, catalog records for the same titles may become duplicated. Whenever possible, CARLI will work to deduplicate and merge these records to a single copy hosted in the Network Zone.

Troubleshooting and Reporting Problems

While electronic titles will be visible in Alma institutions zones and Primo VE discovery instances, the URL and portfolio details for network-shared resources will be unavailable to check directly. CARLI staff have developed several workflows for Troubleshooting Alma/Primo VE Broken Links, and these include steps you should take in investigating and reporting problems to CARLI and/or Ex Libris.

Updated August 30, 2024