1:00 pm -2:00 pm, Introduction and Ex Libris Update
Join us to hear from our Ex Libris representatives about a new offering, Specto! This promises to be a great introduction that shows behind the curtains how this will work!
Please also come prepared with your questions on any Ex Libris products as our reps will be ready to hear from you!
Presenter:
Rebecca Meehan, Solution Consulting Team, Ex Libris (Part of Clarivate)
2:10 pm - 2:40 pm, Opening Talk: Data Visualization/Storytelling
We know there’s a lot of rich data in Ex Libris tools. But how do we use it to tell stories that really matter? In this session, we’ll walk through an example of integrating ALMA data with other sources in Power BI to create clear, impactful insights. You’ll get practical tips, examples, and a demo to help turn raw data into compelling visuals your stakeholders will care about.
Presenter:
Cairo Sanders, University of Victoria
2:45 pm - 3:10 pm, Session 1
One View to Rule them All: Configuring Primo VE for a Global Campus Network
Northeastern University has a network of 13 campuses across the US, UK, and Canada, which includes three physical libraries. As the university began adding campuses, separate Primo VE views were created to limit confusion from patrons seeing materials accessible only in a particular campus library, because the libraries do not transit materials to each other. Several years later, however, the multiple views approach was no longer serving our needs, and we began to explore using a single view. This session will address how we configured a single Primo view for 13 geographically distant campuses with users who might be anywhere in the world. Our strategy involved adapting General Electronic Services and Display Logic Rules to make fulfillment options (or lack thereof) clear to users, leveraging user groups and making changes to our patron data feeds, and using analytics and user studies to learn about preferences around facets, scopes, and the material type filter bar. By offering this presentation, we hope to connect with other libraries with multiple campuses and the challenges that presents for Alma & Primo configuration.
Presenters:
Amanda Calabrese, Northeastern University
Molly Dupere, Northeastern University
Ryan McNally, Northeastern University
3:15 pm - 3:40 pm, Session 2
We Stalled: Let's Make this Again! The Collaborative at the University of Houston System Libraries
CANCELED
Time for an afternoon break!
3:45 pm - 4:10 pm, Session 3
All Systems Go: Using Looker Studio, Google Analytics, and Alma APIs to Create a Systems Monitoring Dashboard
As a unified library services management platform, Alma allows libraries the ability to remove silos and manage their resources in one place. But once a library gets up and running in Alma, how can they know everything is working? Systems monitoring can present a big challenge to librarians, as we often rely on user reporting or manual checks, both of which are not as reliable as we’d like them to be.
In this session I will demonstrate how I developed a systems monitoring dashboard in Looker Studio, integrating Alma's Analytics API with Google Analytics data from Primo VE to provide a one-stop shop for proactively monitoring everything from ejournal availability, to Primo login issues, to potential broken article links.
Join me to explore how automated monitoring can lead to a smoother, more efficient library environment without the need for manual intervention or waiting for user complaints.
Presenter:
Jill Locascio, SUNY College of Optometry
1:00 pm - 2:00 pm, Panel
SUSHI Struggles
Have you figured out the secret (soy) sauce to reliable SUSHI harvesting with Alma? Have you got a wasabi-hot workflow for remediating COUNTER stats that aren't validating in Alma? Come listen to our experts share their insights and best practices about how they've solved issues with SUSHI in Alma.
Panelists:
Elizabeth York, Rutgers University Libraries
Irene Warner, California State University (Slides)
2:05 pm - 2:30 pm, Session 1
Collaborative Cleanup of Collections Funds: Identifying and Resolving Problem PO Lines in Alma Acquisitions
In 2024, University of Houston Libraries Collections Strategies & Discovery Portfolio embarked on a cleanup project aimed at solving the problem of inaccurate fund encumbrances that have made useful budget projections difficult. This was complicated by long-standing workflow ambiguities and a shared tenant environment in Alma. The project relies on collaboration across the portfolio and has impacts across multiple departments. The presentation describes methods used to identify multiple causes of fund balance inaccuracies, technical steps taken to address problem PO lines, challenges encountered, and impacts of the ongoing project through September 2025, as well as plans for future work. The goals of this session are to highlight an opportunity for cooperation among team members in a complex collection management environment and to provide examples of ways that libraries can improve accuracy of financial records within Ex Libris Alma Acquisitions.
Presenters:
Louise Kidder, University of Houston Libraries
2:35 pm - 3:00 pm, Session 2
Separating the Wheat from the Chaff, or, Editing at Scale and Not Losing your Mind
Have you ever had to send a large amount of MARC data to another organization showing the titles and holdings owned by your library? The goal is to send bibliographic and some holdings data, but the organization does not need all the holdings data. This session will show you how to use MarcEdit to separate the needed from the unwanted holdings data.
Presenter:
Margaret Corby, Kansas State University
3:05 pm - 3:30 pm, Session 3
Embedding Digital Objects into Primo VE Search Interface
In 2022, the University of Kentucky Libraries used the Primo VE to index metadata records for the Kentucky Digital Newspaper Program. The database records included full-text alongside descriptive metadata, and search results included URLs pointing to the digital newspaper objects hosted on the Internet Archive. In 2025, the University of Kentucky Libraries further refined this approach by hosting the digital newspaper objects locally, and embedding them within the full record display of the Primo VE Search Interface. This digital newspaper object viewer integration was accomplished with minimal changes to the Primo VE Search Interface, and provides a more seamless user experience. We will demonstrate it in action and get in to the nuts and bolts of how we accomplished our goals with our Primo customization package.
Presenters:
Daniel Naas, University of Kentucky
Eric Weig, University of Kentucky
3:35 pm - 4:15 pm, Session 4
The Data Remediation that Never Ends: Reconciling Digital Collections Metadata Across Multiple Systems
The authors will discuss an ongoing “pet project” to reconcile digital collections data across multiple systems, including enriching WorldCat records, remediating post-Alma implementation local eCollections and batchloading local ePortfolios. Historically, University of Houston Libraries simultaneously described its archival finding aids and digital collections in EAD, Dublin Core, and MARC. As systems evolved, various platforms were migrated, resulting in MARC description of finding aids and digital collections becoming partially automated through OAI-PHM harvesting. However, the original MARC records for these various finding aids and digital collections persist in WorldCat. Digital Collections WorldCat records currently create false-positive searches due to link-rot, local changes in collection titles and extent, diacritical mark errors, and conflicts with a separately maintained local authority file. From 2019 to today, various formal and informal/ad-hoc projects have attempted to reconcile descriptive metadata across various systems. The presentation title is a reference to the eponymous children's song, “The song that never ends,” which is self-referential and infinitely iterative work. The authors hope to enhance the discovery and access of various UH Libraries digital collections, at least until the next “refrain.”
Presenters:
Leonard "Leo" Martin, University of Houston Libraries
Jeannie Castro, University of Houston Libraries