Wonderful.
Okay.
I am Amy Moroso, and I am with the CARLI office, and welcome to our quarterly Alma Primo VE feature release for February 2025.
Myself and my colleagues will discuss some of the new features that are going to be featured this quarter.
And before we get into all of that good stuff, we have announcements and upcoming events.
And again, today's topic is the February 2025 feature release.
And we are offering a new set of resource management training.
There are eight 90 minute sessions scheduled Tuesday mornings, beginning on February 18 sessions will be recorded and edited for future release each session will stand on its own.
Those staff who are newer to Alma resource management may benefit from registering for each session.
There is a link here for the training announcement web page and that will be added to the chat.
We also have an electronic resource management committee is initiating a new series of presentations on various electronic sources, resource topics.
The first of these will take place on Friday, February 14th, Happy Valentine's Day to them at 1.30 p.m.
with Lisa Wallace of Northeastern Illinois University will be sharing her library's experience working with and rolling out the new EBSCO host user interface.
Registration is available on the CARLI website at the link.
And if this is the first you're hearing about all of these trainings or these events, if you are not subscribed to the right email lists from CARLI and are missing our event announcements, we do use those lists as a venue for discussions of topics and announcements of new activities and events.
And please check out the list of lists of email lists from the link on the screen.
And somehow, I just went over there.
Oops.
Let's get back to this, shall we?
I think I just lost my screen sharing.
We can still see your screen, Amy.
Oh, that's very good.
OK.
Yeah, I think I lost my.
So I clicked over and then I'm good.
OK.
And then an announcement here.
In previous releases over the last year, xLibris has introduced several analytics roles.
that provide more granular reporting access to institution data.
This allows institutions the ability to follow privacy best practices, which encourages organizations to govern access to data according to the duties of a user's job.
The new roles that are listed here relate to access to groups of subject areas.
For example, a staff member may need analytics access to create catalog cleanup reports
but they may have no interactions with patrons.
The design analytics resource roles provides the access to the subject areas needed for managing cataloging data.
The existing design analytics role remains available for situations when a staff member requires access to all the analytics areas.
So watch for more information on this shortly.
I believe we'll be having a full web page and announcement about more information about what you can do with these new more granular roles.
And finally, we do have a list of upcoming events here before we get into the release information.
You can always check the Carly event calendar for all of our events, including those related to Alma and Primo VE and anything coming out of our committees who are working on things.
And for the latest news in and around all of Carly, check our newsletter online.
It is on the Carly website and is published monthly.
And with that, I will turn it over to my colleagues to start with the release information for February.
Hello.
I'm starting with the new title search user interface.
The default for the new title search is of the February release is the new user interface.
However, you can turn the old interface back on if you if you wish.
Select your user icon in Alma's persistent search bar.
Select feature rollout preferences, which you can see in the picture on the slide, and then deactivate the new title search toggle.
Next slide, please.
There's been several updates to the physical holdings user interface.
They added a table view.
Search configuration can be done both at the institution level and at the personal user level.
And you can perform more actions directly from search results, including running jobs and selected holdings, which is exciting.
Adding and updating itemized holding sets.
A new item section enabling users to perform actions and items directly from the holding search.
Users who want to retain access to the old items list section can enable it through configuration settings.
A smart link for items provides configurable one-click access to the items section, the holdings items list, or an item search by holdings ID.
You can suppress the holdings record.
There's an enhanced details pane including the quick access component and renaming the sections for more intuitive user experience.
You can exclude facets.
You can add search labels, and you can view cataloger notes for the holdings record.
And in the screen capture, you'll see starting a job from the physical holdings list.
Next slide, please.
Catalogers can now view notes added to local bibliographic records directly from the search results.
without needing to open the metadata editor.
Catalogers and consortium members, institutions, which is all of us, can also view notes and network zone records.
And in the figure, there's a, it's actually in the expanded pane about the item, I mean, the title itself is where you will see it instead of in the list.
Next slide, please.
Institutions can now add local labels to records.
These labels can be used for searching, faceting, and viewing search results.
To maintain control over the number of labels added, only users with manager or administrator roles can add labels to records.
However, all users can view and search using these labels.
And if your institution wants to grant operator roles permission to add these labels, you can contact Ex Libris and they will turn it on.
Next slide, please.
There's some additional title search changes.
Linked open data and navigation sections have been enabled.
You can search for bibliographic records with or without purchase orders and use the has orders facet to filter search results.
You can search by permanent call number without specifying the call number type, except when searching by call number range.
Single-click links are added for more related entities, including courses, licenses, reminders, and related records alongside the existing orders and request links.
Also, the thumbnail images for records now include images from Synthetix.
Next slide, please.
There's a Leganto update.
When on the on rollover copy citation tags, checkbox is checked.
and select tags as selected from the course loader actions, which is configuration of the Ganta LTI integration profiles.
Tags to include can be selected from the dropdown list.
When the job runs, only the selected tags are copied to the duplicated list.
And now I'll hand it over to Yanita and Marisa for electronic resources updates.
Hello, everyone.
One of the first electronic resources updates is auto holdings have a new vendor.
So for those of you who use the automatic upload of electronic holdings, Sage journals and books are now a new vendor that is supported by that.
So yay, very exciting.
The other update that I have is there is a new linking template for Naxos.
And you can visit the URL that is now in the chat for how to configure the central index linking template for Nexos.
And now I will hand it off to Yanira.
Hello all.
I get to cover overlap collection analysis.
It's now taking into account embargo periods.
So overlap collection analysis now takes into account embargo periods when coverage comparison is enabled.
You can also select to calculate the embargo based on a reference year, which can assist in evaluating your future inventory.
For further documentation, you can click on the link, Working with Overlapping Collection Analysis, and we're providing a screenshot so you can see where you can make the changes on your end for your users.
And I'll hand it off to our next Carly person.
Thanks.
So continuing on with the eResources theme, Alma now supports counter release 5.1 reports.
So this is relevant if you manually load or automatically harvest eResource usage data into Alma.
Some quick background information, release 5.1 was originally published in May 2023, and vendor compliance is required for January 2025 usage.
Because of the processing timeline for usage data, in practice, this means that vendors have until the end of February, so the end of this month, to release their R5.1 compliant January data.
Of course, not all vendors will meet this deadline, but that's the goal.
If you work with eResource usage data and you are not aware of this change, do not panic.
Release 5.1 is broadly comparable to release 5.
This transition is not at all like the change from counter 4 to counter 5.
Most changes are technical in detail and on the side of the publishers processing the data.
Reports have not changed.
The metrics have not changed.
There are some meaningful changes between Release 5 and Release 5.1.
That's why it got a 5.1.
But this isn't a counter presentation, so I'll refer you to Counter's page on what's new in Release 5.1 for more information.
And just as a side note, that link to Counter's education page has a ton of really helpful information on all things Counter.
Vendors are required to continue supporting Release 5 for at least three months after they implement Release 5.1.
Some will continue to support Release 5 longer, but that's not required.
That said, once you begin harvesting or loading Release 5.1 data into Alma for a specific vendor, you should no longer harvest Release 5 data.
Alma will consider it duplicate data if you're trying to load both.
You can monitor rollout, sorry, vendor rollout of release 5.1 through the counter registry.
So, the counter registry has a list of all counter-compliant vendors, and they are updating it on a daily basis as vendors are compliant with release 5.1.
Next slide, please.
So, when you find out that a vendor is release 5.1 compliant, you'll need to set up new SUSHI accounts in Alma.
If you already have Release 5 accounts set up, then you can create a 5.1 account based on that existing account.
So under your list of Sushi accounts, you need to click the More Actions button and then create our 5.1 account.
And that's the screenshot at the bottom of the page here.
Request details like requester and customer IDs and any API keys will automatically be copied into that new 5.1 account.
You should confirm with the vendor that these are still valid, but in most cases they should be.
But if you need to change them, you can.
You will need to add the Sushi account or the vendor name, the new Sushi URL and an override URL if necessary.
Once active, the new 5.1 accounts will begin harvesting data from the last release 5 harvest onwards.
So if you last harvested Counter 5 data in December and you set this up, it will start harvesting 5.1 data in January.
Once you have confirmed that your release 5.1 account is set up and is running, again, you should deactivate that release 5 account for the same vendor.
For additional information and instructions on moving Sushi accounts from release 5 to 5.1,
see Alma's workflow for moving Sushi from R5 to R5.1.
They have the instructions written out explicitly.
And a quick note about release 5.1 reports and analytics.
Because R5.1 is so similar to release 5, the reports are actually going to be added to the current folder in analytics, which is the usage data details release 5.
This means that if you have reports created in analytics to pull your counter data, those will continue to work.
Again, refer to the counter website for information on the specific changes between release 5 and release 5.1 if you want those nitty gritty details.
So I will pass it on to Debbie.
Thank you so much, Nicole.
So with the February release this past Monday, you may have noticed that the new Managed Patron Services UI became the default view.
So any staff who started logging into Alma for fulfillment activities after this past Monday, notice that the new UI was enabled as default.
We've got some directions on the screen here that are similar to the ones that Adrian mentioned about the new title search UI, that you can toggle the new UI back to the old UI if needed.
Once you do the toggle, it takes effect immediately.
So you can go back and forth as needed to complete workflows until you're comfortable in the new UI.
It is important to note that the new UI will become the only view in May.
So until May, you can toggle back and forth as needed.
But with the May release, it will be the only UI, so staff will want to get used to the new view.
Next slide, please.
Let me get a couple links in the chat here.
I just closed the chat.
I have quite a morning.
There we go.
Couple links there.
Two more that are here on the screen.
These links were sent out in a couple of emails to iShare liaisons and some other Carly email lists to prepare for the change to the new Managed Patron Services UI.
Hopefully these links look familiar to you, either forwarded to you by your iShare liaison, but also with the link we had earlier in the presentation about the Carly email lists, please do subscribe to the ones that are of interest to yourself as well so that you'll get announcements like these as well.
with the links here on the chat there to documentation to help prepare for how the new UI looks.
Next slide, please.
If you have admin privileges in Alma, when you are selecting the gear symbol above tables in Alma that have been updated to the new UI, so that includes the managed patron services area related tables and the new title search related tables, those of you who have those admin privileges
you will see both a User Customization section and an Institution Customization section.
You'll notice that little yield triangle symbol next to the Institution Customization section.
And that is because if you have admin privileges and you edit the Institution Customization settings, you will then be changing the default settings for everybody at your institution.
So that might be a power that you, after discussing with your colleagues, want to do to change a default customization.
But it may be the kind of thing where you would not make those edits until you talk with your colleagues overall.
Even though you'll be changing the defaults, people would still be able to then make their own customizations again under the user customization section.
If you're wanting to change only the settings for your own login, that would again be under the user customization setting.
So if you have those admin privileges, you're making changes using the gear symbol above those tables, make sure you're in the area that you want.
Another edit that we have with the new update in February, and another link in the chat here, is that the new managed patron services UI can be set up to have a sound alert
when a block related transaction happens at the CERC desk.
The video linked on the slide walks through the process to enable the sound for your institution and then for each circulation desk.
It's a double level enabling that the YouTube video goes through those steps.
Individual staff members can use the little sound symbol noted on the slide to mute the sound if desired.
And that's both in the loans and the returns area.
And the next slide, please.
We are not yet certain, however, that all scenarios when a sound is played during loans and returns.
So, for example, from my testing, loans where the override was not granted when the user record was first retrieved.
So, you're doing a loan to a transaction that would prompt an override.
If you click the OK button instead of the override button, it brings you into the record.
You're then prompted to do an override for every loan that you do.
Yes, you get the sound in that scenario.
But if you do, and first trying that loan, you get that override prompt.
If you click the override button there initially, and then you do loans, you do not get the sound then for the loans that you do, since you've already granted the override.
I've also not been able to get the sound to alert during the return of, for example, lost materials,
materials loaned by an override, or materials that need to be transited.
So I have submitted a ticket to Ex Libris support, asking them for a comprehensive list of when we should anticipate hearing the sound.
And I'll send an email to iShare liaisons once we hear from Ex Libris.
And I'll go ahead and pass this over.
Oh, nope, another one for me.
Sorry about that.
So there's also a new setting in Alma configuration to allow institutions in a fulfillment network, and so that is us.
to opt in to share the name of operators who are putting items into transit at another institution.
And so this decision to enable the setting will need to be a consortial decision.
So Carly office staff will discuss the setting with the Carly Resource Sharing Committee to make an iShare wide decision.
So if you see this in the release notes, you can know that more information will be coming from the Resource Sharing Committee.
Okay, I'll pass this on to my colleagues.
Thanks, Debbie.
The AI Metadata Assistant is a tool that aids catalogers with the creation and update of catalog records through a combination of input templates, images of the details of a resource, and an AI trained from MARC record metadata and metadata practices.
The input template prompts for a title and other fields such as author and ISBN.
The cataloger may upload up to four images of the resource, for example, images of the title page and title page verso, table of contents, back cover, et cetera.
The assistant uses these details to generate a record description that may be reviewed and modified further.
The AI assistant uses a large language model based on MARC data, and that model does not learn from new input
and Alma does not retain any of the uploaded images or other data.
Many of you logging into Alma this week will have seen a pop-up announcement that the AI Metadata Assistant tool is live.
Selecting the Take Me There button will navigate the user, if you have the correct administrative rules, to a configuration screen for an AI usage profile.
This screen requires the user accept the terms of the use for the tool at the institution level, so it should be a one-time act.
And this is basically a disclaimer that the tool is provided as is and users are responsible for any records created or modified using the tool.
Selecting yes enables the tool at the institution level and not at the network or the community zone levels.
After enabling the institution, individual users may be assigned the AI-assisted cataloging role by a staff member who has user management or user administrator roles.
Note that enabling the AI assistant for your institution allows you to modify records that reside only in your institution zone.
Access to create or modify network zone data is not yet available, as CARLI staff are still evaluating the tool.
There is no ability to modify community zone records and Ex Libris has not expressed any information that that will be possible in the future.
Next slide, please.
Going a different direction, the process of marking items that are not in place has been improved for some process types.
For example, if you're a shelf management person and you have an item that currently has a process type of in transit or in process, but other staff have already identified the item is not on the shelf or on a cart, and you've accounted for all of the ILDS bags.
Previously, one could only set a missing status on an item if there was no other status already.
Beginning with this release, some process types may be replaced with a missing status directly and a toggle missing status menu option will appear on the action menu for physical items screens.
So far, we have seen this new option works with items marked either in process or transit and, of course, as well as missing.
Next slide please.
On the previous screen was a image of the toggle missing status appearing in the new title search UI.
Here is pictured an item in the existing physical item search screen.
And you can see that the item has a process type of transit and the actions menu includes the option for toggle missing status.
I want you also to please note that previous procedures for marking items as missing, such as either when you view a request or view the list of item screens, are still valid.
Next slide, please.
Moving on to acquisitions, there are a few improvements.
First up, if your institution runs the scheduled PO line claiming job, you will notice that the job report now includes a list of vendors that the job attempted to email.
along with the details on whether the messages were sent successfully or not.
A new setting also enables the automatic update of the bibliographic description on a PO line after a bib record change.
Alma's default behavior is to create the bib description on the PO line using the record attached at the time the PO line is created.
This description typically remains unchanged if the PO line were closed.
and updated cataloging happened afterwards.
For example, if the POL were relinked to another bib or the underlying bib were updated.
Xlibris has introduced a new parameter, POLineDescriptionUpdateUponBibChange, found in the other settings configuration table.
If this value is set to true, the POL will automatically receive the updated information from the record after it is saved.
Next slide please.
Another one of the acquisitions jobs has received a significant improvement in this release.
The update PO lines information advanced job has been a useful tool for updating POLs where some mistakes might have been made.
However, changing the PO line type could only be done if the inventory type and continuity were the same.
In this release, the job now allows changes across both inventory type and continuity.
In my testing, I was able to change PO line type from electronic to physical and physical to electronic, then also make changes from one times to subscription and vice versa.
I was also able to convert a subscription to a standing order, but changing from a standing order to another type appears not to be allowed at this time.
Libraries may find this useful for cleaning up migrated POLs that didn't come across as desired, as well as fixing Alma-era orders that were entered in a way that turned out to not be as practical.
Next slide, please.
Finally, the PO lines UI has been enhanced somewhat along with the other UI updates that have happened.
First, for PO lines with a large number of linked items, these lists of items will now include pagination on the list itself within a PO line.
This will happen whenever there are more than 20 rows in that list.
That will make navigating through them much easier and faster.
The POL UI also includes a quick access menu.
This is a menu that will appear many places in the new user interface.
It provides a list of all available actions, fields, and sections on the POL.
For example, if you needed to find the MMS ID quickly or you wanted to locate the relink action, this would be a useful place.
Menu includes a recent selections list as well.
So if you repeat an action, edit, or look up on multiple POLs over and over, you'll find the same item more easily.
The quick access menu appears on the POL screen and any other new UI screen when the object you're looking at is displayed full screen or in half screen when the screen is wide enough.
This menu may also be opened by typing a period key.
Note, this is probably something you want to watch out for in your own use.
For example, you may not want to open PO lines on your screen at the same time your cat is walking across your desk.
Finally, noting that the recent selections lists also will appear in a few more fields on the PO line.
Previously, you would see that in the fund and material supplier fields.
In this release, the fields for acquisition method, material type, currency, access provider, and vendor reference number type are all improved.
And now we are ready to move into the Primo VE updates.
Great.
Thank you all my Carly colleagues for the ALMA information.
We are going to go ahead and move over into Primo VE updates for the February release.
Thank you, Amy.
This is a note for libraries that use the WorldCat API Search Index.
The WorldCat Search API version 1 is nearing its end of life, and Alma now has the new replacement WorldCat version 2 available.
And on this slide, there's a screen capture of the Alma other indexes configuration showing where the new version 2 is located.
This new version 2 uses a registration ID that you will need to request from OCLC customer service.
More information for the Ex Libris configurations can be found at the link on the slide.
And then there's also just a more general information link from OCLC about this transition.
And thank you to Debbie for putting those links in the chat.
And I will pass this along to the next person.
Sorry, y'all, I couldn't find my cursor.
This is Yanira again, and I get to chat with, oh, am I patron default sort, or is that someone else?
Well, it looks like somebody moved that on me.
I'm patron default sort.
I just moved it to the end.
OK, sorry, Amy.
No, that's fine.
I just wasn't expecting it here.
So for patron default sort, a user's default sort is now going to be based on their last selected sort type.
So you can see in the little image down at the bottom, you search for something,
and you get your brief results.
And previously, the default sort for advanced and simple searches was always defaulting to relevance.
Then you would have to click the dropdown and choose which one you wanted to use.
Now, for simple and advanced searches for signed-in users, this setting is retained between sessions if you've signed in.
And it will be retained as your, if you're not signed in, it will be retained as
throughout the session that you're working with.
But note that this doesn't apply to other search types like the browse search or the journal search or those sort of more specific ones.
This is for advanced and simple only.
And now I will pass it over.
Okay, thank you.
So we're going to do a brief recount of the Primo Research Assistant as well as giving you the new updates.
So as you all remember in the last session we had, Primo Research Assistant is a generative AI-powered tool that's currently in beta that can be enabled in your Primo VE.
instance.
It takes a natural language question from a user and transforms it into a Boolean query that is then run on the Ex Libris Central Discovery Index, the CDI.
It retrieves the 30 top ranked results, then selects the five top sources that suit the question best, providing a citation of the CDI source that was retrieved.
Next slide please.
So Primo Research Assistant, there is quite enough documentation that is provided in the links here.
You can watch a video to get a demonstration and explanation of how the Research Assistant works.
Also remember that Carly provides support documentation on creating a test view so that you can test the Primo Research Assistant before fully enabling it in your system for your users.
We also want to provide you with another resource.
This happened on October 31st, where there was an online discussion event, and there are plenty of tips there for all of our Carly subscribers that will also help you with the Primo Research Assistant.
Next slide, please.
So here we start with the three updates.
The first update is the refined search, where your users can now refine their searches by resource type, books, journal articles, as well as peer-reviewed, and also using the date, such as last 12 months, last 5 years, last 10 years, or a custom date.
By selecting the refinement icon next to the search box to open the refinement options, your user will be able to use this new update and we have an image for you.
Excuse me next slide.
Please.
The second update is how to cite link.
And so you're able, your users are now able to refine their searches by, oh yeah, by resource type, but they can also select the refinement icon next to the search box, as well as the citing link button that's there.
I'm sorry, I think I repeated some information, but there is a link that is provided when the results are there and you'll get your citation.
Apologies for that.
So now we're on to the last update.
So the reposition overview and sources, and this refers to how you will see your results once you have done your search.
And so you can see the image will give you that information as well.
As always, Carly is here to provide you with additional information.
So thank you for your time.
And I'll pass it on to, I believe, Amy again.
And we have now come to the end of the presentation, and so we will go ahead and open it up to any questions you have about the information we presented here for the February release.
And feel free, you can unmute, you can type in the chat, and any questions that you have, please let us know.
While everyone's typing in or thinking up their questions, I will have, I know that maybe Ted doesn't have experience about cats on the keyboard, but one of mine did delete an entire year of email from my inbox once.
So yeah, I'm sure everyone's got kitty horror stories.
I'm sure I'm not the only one, or puppy horror stories too, but that was mine.
Well, we'll give it a few more minutes in case anybody has any questions.
I don't want to keep folks here.
If we don't have anything to discuss, feel free to unmute and we'll leave the chat open here and we'll stick around for any questions that we have.
And if not, we can end early.
Oh, we do have a question from Brent.
What exactly is the PO line description update setting?
That setting is, and if we want to go back to.
That would be on slide number 27.
That is in the other settings table.
for acquisitions.
So, in configuration, acquisitions, general, other settings.
And then you can filter to the, filter that list to the particular setting parameter name and locate it that way.
Thanks, Ted.
Any additional questions?
Thanks, Mary.
We like slogging through it with you all, too.
Well, I'm not seeing any further questions come in on either chat.
Nobody looks like they are unmuting.
So I'm going to stop sharing here.
And we'll go ahead and stop the recording and thank everybody for being here.
And we will see you in a quarter for another release.
And I guess that will be, oh goodness, that will be in May.
And then it may be warm.
And spring will have sprung and the grass will be green.
Great.
Thanks for attending, everybody.
We appreciate it.
You know where to find us if you need us.