Ex Libris Roadmap Alma/Primo
Presenter: Katy Aronoff (Ex Libris) 

Description: 

Topic: Roadmap

Working With Ex Libris Support (Slides)
Presenters: Matt Baker, Callie Mendoza, Jack Boettcher (Ex Libris) 

Description: 

Topic:  Ex Libris Support 

Primo NDE including User Engagement Analytics (e.g., Mixpanel)
Presenter: Kaitlyn O'Malley (Ex Libris)

Description: 

Topic: Discovery, Analytics

Ex Libris roadmap and tools for Linked Open Data use
Presenter: Lauren Wojcik  (Ex Libris)

Description:

Topic: Linked data

Ex Libris / Clarivate AI initiatives
Presenter: Lauren Wojcik (Ex Libris)

Description: 

Topic: AI

Rialto/collection development
Presenter: TBD (Ex Libris)

Description:

Topic: Rapido

PRA…we went with it!: SJSU's Decision to Enable Primo Research Assistant
Presenters: Sharesly Rodriguez, Christine Holmes (CSU)

Description: After a year-long evaluation, the Primo Research Assistant Team at SJSU Library decided to enable the AI tool within OneSearch. Our presentation will cover the evaluation process, including a responsible AI framework and insights from user testing involving library faculty, staff, and students. Our testing revealed that 78% of participants approved the tool, recognizing its potential to simplify initial research consultations and assist students with developing research questions. We will also discuss key takeaways, support resources, and future plans. The session will touch upon discussions regarding AI ethics, biases, misinformation, privacy, and environmental impact. 

Topic: Discovery

Usage Data Analysis for E-Resource Management Decisions Workshop

Presenter: Caitlin Wilhelm (CSU)

Description: As we face budget pressures on all fronts and increased demand for immediate resource access, acquisitions, collections, and ERM personnel must make hard decisions about what electronic resources to maintain, suspend, or cancel. Many factors must be considered while making these decisions, but one major factor is usage and how that compares to cost. See how Cal State LA has been standardizing internal reporting using Alma Analytics and other tools and designing reports to help guide librarians and staff in difficult collection decisions. 

Topic: ERM

From Bookstore to Library: A Collaborative Workflow for Student Textbook Savings

Presenters: Michaela Bettez, Keri Prelitz , Eric Karkhoff (CSU)

Description: This presentation will discuss how a cross-campus team of librarians and staff from the public services, scholarly communication, circulation, systems, and acquisitions and the university bookstore comes together to identify required course materials that are owned by the library in a multi-user ebook format so that students do not have to purchase the book. Now in its 8th year, this cross-campus collaboration has become a cornerstone of our zero-cost for course materials program, where the majority of our student textbook savings are realized by using library materials. 

During our 30-minute presentation, we will discuss the workflow and evolution of this process, with emphasis on how library materials are identified within Alma, how the list of identified titles are shared with students, and finally, how we calculate the student savings. We hope that by sharing the logistics of the project on our campus, other academic libraries can implement a similar list for their students. By working behind the scenes to compile this information, we are supporting student success and educational equity. 

Topic: Workflow

From ProQuest to OCLC to Alma to eScholarship : the UC theses/dissertations workflow

Presenter: Marcus Jun (UC)

Description: This presentation will describe the University of California ETD (electronic theses and dissertations) metadata workflow, the various systems involved and why we do what we do. Attendees will learn about external systems that integrate with Alma and Alma features that can import and export data. 

UC students submit their ETDs to ProQuest (PQ). PQ provides metadata to the California Digital Library (CDL) which converts it to MARC. The MARC records are uploaded to WorldCat through an OCLC data sync collection. The OCLC records are loaded into Alma and e-portfolios are created with the URLs. When embargos are added, removed, and updated, library catalogers update the Alma bibliographic record. A publishing profile transmits these changes to the eScholarship repository. Through this workflow we provide online access to ETDs and a method for updating various systems when an embargo changes.

Topic: Resource management/ ERM

Developing SDSU Library’s Guiding Principles for AI Integration

Presenters: Lucy Campbell, Connor Franklin Rey, Sarah Tribelhorn, Rayyon Robinson, Keven Jeffery  (CSU)

Description: As artificial intelligence technologies continue to shape higher education, libraries face both opportunities and challenges in their adoption. At San Diego State University Library, a group of faculty librarians have been working to develop a set of guiding principles and an evaluative rubric to support responsible and transparent use of AI tools in library workflows and services. This presentation will share the collaborative process behind creating the guiding principles. It will outline the principles of human oversight, explainability, ethics, accessibility, critical literacies, and sustainability. Attendees will learn how Librarians envision these principles informing future decision-making, how the rubric can be applied to assess AI tools in real-world contexts, and how the project aligns with broader conversations around AI literacy in academic libraries. 

Topic: AI

Lightning Talks Series 1

• Hidden in the Liner Notes
  Joe Donnelly (Colgate)

• The Roundabout Route to Secondary Resource Type Configuration for External Resources
  Greta Heng (CSU)

• Using Timeful.app to gather Availability for Desk Scheduling
  Violet Shemitz (UC)

• Using Alma-D to Showcase Student Zines 

Leann Mulholland, Marley Rodriguez (CC)

Lightning Talks Series 2

• Feeding Alma fake COUNTER reports using real data from deadbeat vendors
  Jeff Karlsen (CC)

• User Note Utility Cloud App
  Jay Hartzell (CC)

• Holdings at a Glance: OCLC API + Alma for Data-Driven Weeding
  Minyoung Chung (USC)

Lightning Talks Series 3

• From Chaos to Clarity: Streamlining the Internal Alma Request Process
  Katrina Rahn, Eve-Marie Miller (CC) 

• What do you do?: Talking about technical services in library school
  Adrienne Nguyen (UC)

• A Quick-Start Guide to E-Resource Licensing  
  Evelyn Goessling (UC)

8:30 - 9:15am Registration/check in / Room: TBD

9:15 - 9:30am Welcome and logistics 

                                      Presenters: eCaug planning committee members/ Room: TBD

9:30 - 10:15am Primo Research Assistant versus Other Academic AI search tools

Presenter: John Wenzler (CSU)/ Room: TBD

Description: The presentation will summarize some of the challenges of using AI chatbots for academic research and compare the effectiveness of Primo Research Assistant against two other academic AI search tools, Consensus and Scite. The presenter will evaluate the effectiveness of each tool in answering questions submitted to Cal State East Bay's chat reference service and consider their pros and cons.

Topic: Discovery, AI

10:20 - 11:05am What Is Your Library Doing about AI Tools Being Offered by Various Vendors

Facilitators: Christine Holmes, Ya Wang (CSU)/ Room: TBD

Description: The roundtable discussion will focus on how libraries  have used and could use AI tools provided by library vendors. 

Topic: Discovery, AI

11:10 - 11:55am Enhancing Discovery for Comics and Graphic Novels through Secondary Resource Mapping

Presenters: Can Li, Christian Ward (CSU)/ Room: TBD

Description: Comics and graphic novels are an increasingly common genre in academic libraries as they gain traction in pedagogy across

disciplines. Yet, despite their growing relevance, these resources are difficult to discover in Primo. To address this problem, we implemented a secondary resource type specifically for comics and graphic novels. By creating a distinct facet category we significantly improved the discoverability of these resources. 

We will share practical strategies for identifying comics and graphic novels, configuring accurate mappings, and establishing workflows that can be adapted for other specialized or less discoverable resource types. Attendees will leave with a replicable approach to improving discovery for unique collections, ensuring that diverse materials are not only collected but also made readily accessible.

Topic: Discovery

Lunch                               65 min

1:00 - 1:10pm       Lightning Talk: What's new with ALMA and PRIMO?

Presenters: Pawel Szponar (CC)/ Room: TBD

Description: We will showcase a few new tools from Ex Libris that are upcoming this year, including PRIMO NDE, Mixpanel and Library Open Workflows. 

Topic: PRIMO NDE, Mixpanel and Library Open Workflows

1:10 - 1:55pm       A Comparative Assessment of the Primo Research Assistant at UC Davis

Presenter: Matthew Conner (UC)/ Room: TBD

Description: This presentation will summarize a project to analyze the effectiveness of the Primo AI Researcher, an AI tool for use with the Primo Discovery System in use by the UC library system.  The project was accomplished by a team of librarians at UC Davis, in collaboration with an AI Incubator group, which oversees AI research projects at this library, and was conducted in Spring 2025.

 An experiment was designed as a double-blind study that evaluated the effectiveness of the first five results for each tool.  The team, drawn from the spectrum of subject areas, developed a series of questions across the major subject areas as well as across a number of rhetorical categories of questions.  The team administered the queries and then evaluated the results according to a rubric.  The presentation will share details of the experiment and outcomes.

Topic: Discovery

8:30 - 9:15am Registration/check in / Room: TBD

9:15 - 9:30am Welcome and logistics 

                                      Presenters: eCaug planning committee members/ Room: TBD

9:30 - 10:15am Primo Research Assistant versus Other Academic AI search tools

Presenter: Win Shih (USC)/ Room: TBD

Description: This presentation explores the current state of artificial intelligence (AI) adoption within Big Ten Academic Alliance (BTAA) libraries. Based on a comprehensive survey conducted in spring 2025, we share insights into AI implementation strategies, governance, budgeting, collaborations, use cases, and barriers. Our findings reveal that while libraries are eager to leverage AI’s potential—particularly in research support, metadata enhancement, and user services—significant challenges remain, including funding, staff capacity, and ethical concerns. This session will highlight emerging best practices, evaluation methods for vendor AI tools, and future directions for AI in academic libraries. Attendees will gain practical knowledge to guide their own institutions’ AI initiatives and foster collaborative partnerships. We hope our findings and presentation will help libraries navigate the complexities of AI implementation and leverage its potential to improve user services and operational efficiency.

Topic: AI

10:20 - 11:05am Primo NDE progress

Facilitator: Kun Lin (USC)/ Room: TBD

Description: In this round table discussion, we will discuss the current progress and issues of Primo Next Discover Experiences. As a participant in early adapter program, Kun will lead discussions on functionality, known issues, customization learning curves, 3rd party addons and change management.

Topic: Discovery

11:10 - 11:55am Technological change as an opportunity for transparency and collaboration

Presenters: Ellen Augustiniak, Ashley Newton (UC)/ Room: TBD

Description: In 2024, UC Irvine's Law Library started using the Alma API to connect to the campus Accounts Payable system for the first time. We used the implementation as an opportunity to increase communication, transparency, and collaboration with our colleagues in the Law School's Finance department, as well as Law Library leadership. We updated how we use data in Alma's POLs and developed Analytics reports as we refined our workflows. There were in-person meetings, iterative documentation approaches, and targeted communication with people in different levels of responsibility as we updated our workflows in response to the API implementation. In this program, we'll share what worked well, what we'd do differently, and how we plan to move forward.

Topic: Acquisitions, Analytics, APIs 

Lunch                               65 min

1:00 - 1:45pm       Connecting Across California: CA Courier Route and Connecting Different Systems

Presenter: Christopher Lee (CSU)/ Room: TBD

Description: Many libraries in CA use Unity as their courier for Resource Sharing. The CSU is currently negotiating the creation of a CA route libraries can join to share materials between our groups without needing a change to the contract every time a new partner joins. To get the most out of this route we need to connect through Resource Sharing. This presentation will also look at how we can connect when on different systems using Hybrid Pods or ISO Connections. 

Topic: Rapido, systems