[DCRM-L] Alma

[Julie Moore]

Dear Richard,

All I can say is Good Luck!

We moved from III's Sierra to Alma, with our go-live date more than 2 years
ago, and I cannot see the light at the end of the tunnel on the clean up
that we still need to do.

Are you part of a larger consortium? We are, and that complicated things.
At least for us, we ended up using the OCLC master record. In doing so, we
lost most of our locally-enhanced/value added notes, descriptions, subject
headings, and etc. ... anything that we added locally (that we could not
identify and mark as local) was lost. That represents a huge amount of time
and effort over the decades of cataloging at our library.

Bound-withs are a nightmare in Alma ... so just brace yourself for that car
wreck! They are possible ... but they behave very differently in Alma than
they did in Sierra. They require many steps to set them up ... and it is
very clunky. We are still fixing those.

I have also been sorely disappointed in Alma's authority control. They
talked a good game when they sold it to us, and it sounded amazing ... and
that was the main reason that gave Alma major points for me (compared to
their competitors) ... but the authority control does not work like they
claimed it would.

Julie Moore
Fresno State



On Wed, Sep 18, 2019 at 8:28 AM Matthew Bright <me at matthewbright.net> wrote:

> In a consortial environment with multiple libraries sharing a "Network
> Zone" bibliographic record there are some complications for rare materials.
> The shared record can be merged or overlaid by any institution (and some
> consortia automatically update these when the OCLC record is updated). Any
> copy-specific fields that are added as "local fields" (or "local
> extensions" as Alma calls them now for some reason) are retained when this
> happens, but only some MARC fields can be local fields. For example, 590 is
> allowed to be a local field, but 655 is not (a 69X would have to be used)
> and 700 is not (a 9XX would have to be used). Alma doesn't care about $5
> designations, it just ignores this data.
>
> Also potentially problematic is that Primo VE cannot display local fields
> of other institutions (though Primo non-VE can). This means that any
> copy-specific notes and headings added as local fields (which protects the
> metadata from accidental edit or deletion by other institutions) are not
> visible to users at those other institutions. Copy-specific holdings notes
> can be displayed in Primo VE for all institutions--I believe they are, or
> can be configured to be, keyword searchable--but this would not accommodate
> name and genre headings, etc.
>
> We have decided to allow copy-specific information to be included in
> non-local fields in shared bibliographic records in order to make this
> information visible and searchable to all, but it limits the flexibility of
> record updates and overlays that are allowed.
>
> Matthew Bright
> Metadata Coordinator
> American University Library
>
> On Wed, Sep 18, 2019 at 11:11 AM Jones, Angela <arjones at mail.smu.edu>
> wrote:
>
>> Hi everyone,
>>
>>
>>
>> SMU migrated from Voyager to Alma in the summer of 2017. Off the top of
>> my head, here are my two cents about issues that specifically relate to
>> cataloging rare or special collections materials.
>>
>>
>>
>> First, bound-withs work very differently in Alma than in Voyager. I find
>> the Alma workflow to catalog bound-withs to be more cumbersome, although
>> the record displays and discoverability in both Alma and in Primo seems to
>> work fine.
>>
>>
>>
>> The second issue concerns local notes. When we migrated, we went from an
>> environment where all the campus libraries shared Voyager, but didn’t share
>> bib records. Our bibs all migrated as separate bibs, but going forward in
>> Alma we have had to share new records. We all had been accustomed to using
>> 590 fields in our specific records for local notes, but in a shared record
>> environment that can get sort of messy. We have looked at using other MARC
>> fields in the holdings record to put in copy specific notes such as donor
>> notes, provenance, etc. But my understanding is that such notes aren’t
>> necessarily searchable in Primo. I would love to find out that I am wrong
>> about that, however!
>>
>>
>>
>> As I said, that is my two cents. Others may have different perspectives.
>>
>>
>>
>> Angela
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Angela Jones
>>
>> Head of Technical Services
>>
>> Underwood Law Library, Dedman School of Law
>>
>> Southern Methodist University
>>
>> P.O. Box 750354
>>
>> Dallas, TX 75275-0354
>>
>> 214-768-1827
>>
>> arjones at smu.edu
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* DCRM-L <dcrm-l-bounces at lib.byu.edu> *On Behalf Of *Tedford, Beth
>> *Sent:* Wednesday, September 18, 2019 9:54 AM
>> *To:* DCRM Users' Group <dcrm-l at lib.byu.edu>
>> *Subject:* Re: [DCRM-L] Alma
>>
>>
>>
>> I would as well. We will be migrating from Voyager to ALMA next year and
>> would love to hear of others experiences. Thanks.
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 18, 2019 at 10:36 AM Carpenter, Jane <
>> jfcarpenter at library.ucla.edu> wrote:
>>
>> I’d also be interested in hearing responses to Richard’s query—
>>
>> Thanks—
>>
>> Jane Carpenter
>>
>> Special Collections Cataloger
>>
>> UCLA Library Special Collections
>>
>> jfcarpenter at library.ucla.edu
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Sent from my iPhone
>>
>>
>> On Sep 18, 2019, at 7:22 AM, Noble, Richard <richard_noble at brown.edu>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Could those of you who have experience with Alma in the context of rare
>> materials cataloging please advise me of what to look for in a presentation
>> by representatives from ExLibris? Advice off the top of your head would be
>> fine, and could be privately communicated if you think that advisable. We
>> are currently a III Sierra user.
>>
>>
>>
>> Many thanks -
>>
>>
>>
>> RICHARD NOBLE :: RARE MATERIALS CATALOGUER :: JOHN HAY LIBRARY
>>
>> BROWN UNIVERSITY  ::  PROVIDENCE, R.I. 02912  ::  401-863-1187
>>
>> <Richard_Noble at Br <RICHARD_NOBLE at BROWN.EDU>own.edu>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>>
>> Beth Tedford, MLIS
>>
>> Special Collections & Archives Assistant
>>
>> Rare books cataloger
>>
>> Z. Smith Reynolds Library
>>
>> Wake Forest University
>>
>> PO Box 7777
>>
>> Winston-Salem, NC 27109
>> 336-758-4657
>>
>> tedforme at wfu.edu
>>
>> Defender of Wonders
>>
>>
>>
>

-- 
Julie Renee Moore
Special Collections Catalog Librarian
Fresno State
julie.renee.moore at gmail.com
559-278-5813

“Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from
themselves.”... James Matthew Barrie
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