Ideas for Activities During the Technical Freeze

Background

The Technical Freeze during the Production Migration to Alma and Primo VE will begin on May 1, 2020. More details will be shared during the March 5 Open Office Hours.

During the Technical Freeze, any Cataloging and Acquisitions activities in Voyager will not be copied to Alma, therefore you should not continue to use Voyager for these tasks. 

On April 25, just ahead of the Technical Freeze, Voyager bulk loads will cease. 

Beginning May 1, backloading holdings to OCLC WorldCat through setting Voyager’s “OK to export” flag will cease to function in Voyager so that your OCLC Data Sync Collections can be adjusted to work with Alma. A final backloading file from Voyager will be sent to OCLC on May 1. If you need to set WorldCat holdings during the Technical Freeze, they should be done through OCLC Connexion. CARLI staff will be completing the configuration of your Data Sync Collection in Alma so you can publish holdings from Alma shortly after migration. 

Circulation can continue in Voyager until June 19. At that point, libraries will have the option to switch to using Alma offline circ.

Everyone will be live on Alma June 24.

The following list of activities for Technical Services staff during the Technical Freeze was compiled by members of the CARLI Technical Services Committee. If your library is planning to do a project during the Technical Freeze not included on this list, please email the CARLI Office so we can share your ideas with your colleagues!  

Updated March 3, 2020

Ideas for Activities During the Technical Freeze

Prepare for Day 1

• Make a checklist of what to do on the first day you go live.
• Update public-facing documents describing how to log into I-Share.
• Notify your campus of the upcoming change.
• Plan activities to help reduce stress for staff on cut-over day (ex. arrange therapy animals, plan a good-bye celebration for Voyager and VuFind, etc.)

Training and Review

• Continue to train staff and student workers using the Sandbox.
• Review Alma training videos and documents.
  • Recommended Online Trainings for Acquisitions and Cataloging staff.
  • I-Share Network Zone Cataloging Recommendations
  • Importing Bibliographic Records from WorldCat to Alma
• Practice routine workflows. 
• Learn a new skill that will benefit your new work in Alma (take a class, attend a workshop, research the skill, etc.)
• Revise local documentation and training materials.

Vendors

• Reach out to vendors that provide MARC records or EDI invoices and make sure they switch you over to Alma-optimized records.
• Hold approval plan and standing orders until end of technical freeze.

Voyager Reports

• Run reports for post-go-live cleanup projects. 
• Run reports for what you want to archive.
• Document the details of reports you might want to recreate in Alma Analytics. 

Library Space Projects

• Dust and clean.
• Shelf-read.
• Complete shifting projects.

Physical Processing/Review/Repair

• Donations / Gifts.
• Government document offerings.
• Conservation repair or preservation projects.

Data Projects

• Extract any special collection records you wish to unlink and reload after migration.
• Work on non-MARC metadata projects.
• Work in OCLC Connexion and save to local files during the Technical Freeze. (Workflow discussed in 5/14/20 Open Office Hour)

Identify Any New Organizational Approaches

• Question everything you do currently, what you are doing it for, and whether it impacts your patrons. Identify processes that were system based that may not be a requirement of library operations.
• Consider how separate units may now work more closely together.

Take a Vacation! Be refreshed for go live!