Embedded Files
Contents
Contents
Roles You Need
Roles You Need
Designs Analytics (to create the analysis)
Any Sort of Manager/Administrator Role (to create sets and run jobs)
Collection Inventory Operator and Collection Inventory Operator Extended (to create, populate, and edit the collection)
Discovery Administrator or Discovery Operator - Limited (to configure Primo to show Collection Discovery)
Configuration
Configuration
If you don’t already have Collection Discovery turned on in your Primo instance, you’ll need to do so:
In the Alma Production Menu, go to Configuration.
Please be very, VERY careful when you’re in the configuration menu. You can break the library very easily here.
Choose Discovery > Configure Views.
Click the action menu beside your Default View and select Edit.
Toggle the Collection Discovery option to Active.
Edit the Collection Discovery description by clicking Edit in the action menu, changing the description, and clicking Save.
Click Back to save your change.
You’ll now have a “Collection Discovery” option in the top Primo menu bar.
Creating the Analysis
Creating the Analysis
From the Alma Production Menu, go to Analytics > Design Analytics.
In Analytics, choose Create > Analysis.
In the Subject Area, choose Titles.
Title your analysis something like “New Titles MMSID List” and save it in your institution’s shared folder (Shared Folders > [Your Institution Name] > Reports).
Choose the following criteria by dragging the name of the criterion from the Subject Areas box into the Selected Columns box:
Bibliographic Details > MMS Id
Bibliographic Details > Creation Date
Bibliographic Details > Begin Publication Date
Bibliographic Details > Material Type
Bibliographic Details > Suppressed from Discovery
Title Measures > Num of Physical Actives (Active) or Title Measures > Num of Portfolios (Active) (see below for more info)
To filter criteria, click on the gear icon beside the name of each criterion and select Filter. To use SQL in a filter (as noted below), check the Convert this filter to SQL box and click OK.
Apply the following filters to the criteria:
MMS Id: (none)
Creation Date: (copy and paste this SQL code) "Bibliographic Details"."Creation Date" >= TIMESTAMPADD(SQL_TSI_DAY, -365, CURRENT_DATE)
This will give you titles purchased in the past year (i.e., 365 days). To make it longer or shorter, change the 365 above to the number of days you’d prefer – but make sure that it’s still negative.
Begin Publication Date: (copy and paste this SQL code) "Bibliographic Details"."Begin Publication Date" >= "Title Creation Date"."Title Creation Year"
This filter, in conjunction with the Creation Date filter, will give you only the titles that were published this year.
Material Type: is equal to/is in Book
If you’d like to include other types of media in your collection, click on the magnifying glass icon beside the Value text box and select the appropriate material type(s).
Suppressed From Discovery: is equal to/is in No
Num of Physical Items (Active): (copy and paste this SQL code) "Title Measures"."Num of Physical Items (Active)"+"Title Measures"."Num of Portfolios (Active)" >= 1
If you’d like to create separate lists of print titles and electronic titles, create two analyses with all the previous filters, but use these filters instead of the one above:
IN THE PRINT TITLES ANALYSIS: Num of Physical Items (Active): is greater than or equal to 1
IN THE ELECTRONIC TITLES ANALYSIS: Num of Portfolios (Active): is greater than or equal to 1
Delete all the criteria except MMS Id from the Selected Columns box by clicking on each gear icon and selecting Delete.
The filters will remain, and this will give you a clean MMS Id list to use when you’re creating your set.
Click on the Results option at the top of the screen, and it will give you a list of all the MMS Ids of new titles in your collection.
Export this list to a spreadsheet by clicking the Export icon (second from the left, right beside the print icon) and choosing Data > Excel.
You have the option of creating a set based on an analysis, but at least in my experience, it takes a lot longer to load the analytics list than it does to simply upload the Excel file.
Creating the Set(s)
Creating the Set(s)
From the Alma Production Menu, go to Admin > Manage Sets.
Click Add Set > Itemized.
Type in a set name.
I usually use something like “New Titles [Date]”, but you can use whatever you want
Choose Set Content Type > All Titles.
Choose Private > No if you’d like other staff at your library to see/use it; choose Private > Yes if you’d like to keep it to yourself.
Leave the other options at default:
Status > Active
Content Origin > Institution only
Upload the spreadsheet you just exported from Analytics and hit Save.
If you get an error message at this point, you’ll need to do some data scrubbing of your Excel file because Alma doesn’t understand numbers stored as text. A quick hack (it takes longer to describe than to execute) to get your MMS Ids in a readable format:
Open up your spreadsheet file.
In the cell beside the first MMS Id number, type =concatenate(A2) (where A2 is the cell containing the first MMS Id number) and press Enter.
Press the left arrow key once (to get into that number square), and then hit Ctrl+down arrow (to get to the bottom of the list).
Press the right arrow key once (to get back into the second column), and then press Shift+Ctrl+up arrow (to highlight all the empty cells beside the filled MMS Id cells).
Press Ctrl+d (to fill the formula down the rest of the cells).
Press Ctrl+c (to copy the cells you just filled).
Right click on the first MMS Id number cell, and then select Paste Values only (to get those pesky numbers in the right format).
Select all of Column B (click the column header) and press the Delete key.
Save and close your file.
You’ll get a confirmation message saying the job was started.
Creating a Collection
Creating a Collection
In the Alma Production Menu, go to Resources > Manage Collections.
Pick Add Top-Level Collection.
Add the following information to the Collection information and hit Save:
Record Format: MARC21 Bibliographic
Title: a name that’s discoverable/searchable in Primo
Name: what you want to call this collection
I use the same Title and Name for my collections, to cut down on confusion – but use whatever naming conventions you’d like
Library: whatever library you’d like this collection to be “housed” in
Thumbnail Upload: an image that will serve as the “cover graphic” for your collection
Alma will kick you back an error message if it’s not a jpg, png, or gif, or if it’s over 100k in size – a word to the wise: of these three file types, jpg is the smallest
If you don’t choose a graphic, Alma will use its default image (which, to be honest, isn’t very visually appealing)
In the Collection Resource Editor, you have the option to create Sub-collections.
We’ve split out our list out by print titles and electronic titles, because unfortunately you can’t facet a collection – but for that, you’ll need separate sets for electronic and print titles.
Click the Sub-collections tab.
Click Add Sub-collection and enter the same information as above (with a new sub-collection Title and Name).
To add titles to the collection/sub-collection:
Click the Title List tab.
Click Add Titles from Set.
You have the ability to add individual titles by clicking Add Title.
Choose the Name of the set you just created and click Add Set Titles.
You’ll get a confirmation message saying the job was started.
Changing out Titles in the Collection
Changing out Titles in the Collection
Because the New Titles MMS Id List analysis is dynamic, a new list will generate every day when Analytics updates.
At an interval of your choosing, export (and scrub) the Excel file of MMS Ids and create a new set using the instructions above.
Unfortunately, Alma doesn’t let you update existing itemized lists using file uploads. So once you’ve used a New Titles set to populate your collection, feel free to delete it.
In the Title List tab of your collection, select Remove All Titles and you’ll get a confirmation message telling you the job has started.
Populate your fresh list by clicking Add Titles from Set and using the instructions above.
Since these are officially jobs, they’ll take a few minutes to complete.
Your collections will repopulate in Primo at the next refresh (again, a few minutes).
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