Alma Resource Sharing in the SUNY System

October 26, 2021

Agenda

• SUNY resource sharing overview
• Alma resource sharing positives and negatives
• COVID-19 Pandemic and Alma resource sharing
• Expanding Alma resource sharing beyond SUNY
• Recent improvements to Alma resource sharing
• Other resource sharing initiatives
• Questions

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State University of New York (SUNY) System

• SUNY system is comprised of 60 institutions of varying types and sizes located throughout New York state
• 4 University Centers
• 26 comprehensive and technical colleges
• 30 community colleges
• Implemented Alma/Primo VE in June 2019
• SUNY Library Services (SLS) created to provide centralized management and support

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SUNY Resource Sharing Pre-Alma

• Nearly all SUNY campuses used ILLiad to send and receive resource sharing requests via OCLC
• Vast majority SUNY libraries using IDS Logic to streamline workflows in ILLiad
• Less manual work for staff
• Lower turnaround times for users
• High resource sharing technology costs
• ILLiad subscription, ILLiad server hosting fee, WorldShare ILL subscription, IDS Project membership
• Cost per transaction numbers very high at some campuses
• No central management of SUNY resource sharing

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Alma Resource Sharing

• Implemented for physical resource sharing in Summer 2019 at no added cost to campuses
• ILLiad digital resource sharing far superior to Alma, so we did not implement digital resource sharing for all SUNYs
• Limited article delivery functionality
• Alma’s copyright compliance features not capable of enforcing CONTU rule of five
• Planned limited implementation of digital resource sharing for non-ILLiad campuses at a later date

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Alma Resource Sharing Positives

• High level of automation made borrowing and lending in Alma far less labor intensive for staff
• Borrowing requests automatically sent to potential lenders
• No manual call number and location lookup for lending requests
• Users received requested items more quickly
• Pre-Pandemic: 4-5 days in Alma vs. 6-7 days in ILLiad
• Post-Pandemic: 7-8 days in Alma vs. 10-11 days in ILLiad
• Comparison of items borrowed from ELD libraries by Albany and Buffalo
• Longer loan and renewal periods
• 16 week loan (all users) with three 16 week renewals (faculty/staff and grad students only)
• Some materials (media, new/rare items, etc.) given 30 day loan with one 30 day renewal
• Alma/ILLiad NCIP integration allows users to manage all loans in a single system and streamlines workflows for staff

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Alma Resource Sharing Negatives

• Not all SUNY campuses embraced Alma resource sharing
• Concerns about system wide loan and renewal period
• Didn’t want to manage requests in multiple systems
• Not all SUNYs could take advantage of Alma/ILLiad NCIP integration
• ILLiad and Alma usernames must match for borrowing integration to work
• Workflow issues
• Lenders can accidentally complete borrowing requests
• Some lending locate errors
• Cannot revert to previous request status
• Fill rate was surprisingly low (55-60% for all of SUNY)
• Began working with Ex Libris on addressing system issues
• Can we add non-SUNY libraries to our Alma rotas?

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Alma Resource Sharing & COVID-19 Pandemic

• Alma physical resource sharing shut down in late March 2020 due to COVID-19 pandemic
• Resumed in August 2020
• Budget concerns have many campuses looking at their resource sharing costs
• ILLiad not cost effective for some campuses
• Many campuses stuck with bad pricing deals for WorldShare ILL
• Fast-tracked Alma article resource sharing implementation
• Implemented in May 2020
• About half of SUNY participates as either borrower or lender
• 85-90% fill rate and 1-2 day turnaround time
• 10 SUNY campuses have decided to cancel ILLiad to date, and others are considering alternatives to ILLiad/OCLC
• Also began additional conversations about Alma resource sharing with non-SUNY libraries

Alma RS with Ithaca College and Nazareth College

• Went live with Ithaca College in February 2021 and Nazareth College in August 2021
• 47 SUNY libraries chose to participate
• Ithaca borrowing and lending, Nazareth only lending
• 16 week loan period with three renewals
• Statistics to date
• 196 SUNY physical borrowing requests filled by Ithaca & Nazareth
• 1.3% increase in SUNY borrowing fill rate
• 840 physical items loaned to Ithaca by SUNY libraries
• Ithaca and Nazareth uses same statewide courier as SUNY
• no shipping costs associated with these requests
• turnaround times equal to requests filled within SUNY system

Alma RS with Brandeis University

• Went live with Brandeis University in June 2021
• Physical borrowing and lending only
• 16 week loan with 3 renewals
• Brandeis located in Boston area, so they’re not on our statewide courier
• 24 SUNY libraries chose to participate
• Statistics to date
• 66 SUNY physical borrowing requests filled by Brandeis
• 0.7% increase in SUNY borrowing fill rate
• 80 physical items loaned by SUNY libraries
• 9.8 day average turnaround time

Alma Resource Sharing with Cal State University

• Implemented Alma Resource Sharing Pilot Project with Cal State system in July 2021
• SUNY Participants: Albany, Buffalo, Oswego, Purchase, Stony Brook
• CSU Participants: Chico, Fullerton, Humboldt, Northridge, Sacramento
• Pilot project parameters
• Physical resource sharing only
• 16 week loan with no renewals
• Pilot project will run through May 2022
• Statistics to date
• 105 SUNY physical borrowing requests filled by CSU
• 1.3% increase in SUNY borrowing fill rate
• 236 physical items loaned by SUNY libraries
• 10.3 day average turnaround time

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Alma Resource Sharing with WRLC

• Currently testing Alma resource sharing with WRLC
• Pilot project participants
• SUNY: Albany, Buffalo, Stony Brook
• WRLC: American University, George Washington University, Marymount University
• Pilot project parameters
• Physical resource sharing only
• 8 week loan with one 8 week renewal
• Hope to go live in Fall 2021

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Alma Resource Sharing with CSCU

• Went live with digital resource sharing between Empire State College (SUNY) and Tunxis Community College (CSCU) in spring 2021
• Request volume has been very low to date
• Expanding to include additional libraries
• SUNY: ESC, Buffalo, Purchase, Cayuga, Jefferson, Tompkins-Cortland, Westchester
• CSCU: Eastern, Southern, Asnuntuck, Three Rivers, Tunxis
• Future plans
• Expand digital resource sharing to include more libraries in both systems?
• Expand to physical resource sharing?

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Discovery and Alma Resource Sharing with Non-SUNY Libraries

• Holdings of non-SUNY libraries are not discoverable in SUNY Primos
• Vast majority of holdings at Ithaca, Brandeis, Nazareth, Cal State, and WRLC should be covered by Primo’s SUNY scope
• Unique holdings not requestable unless:
• SUNY library has activated the WorldCat scope in Primo
• request originates in an external database and comes in to Primo through the link resolver
• Possible to search non-SUNY holdings in Primo via deep linking, but only one deep link can be configured per Primo instance
• This issue is being addressed in Rapido, but it is unlikely to be addressed in Alma

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Recent Improvements to Alma Resource Sharing

• Ex Libris has been open to feedback on Alma resource sharing from SUNY, and these conversations have led to several meaningful improvements
• Thank you, Moshe Shechter (Alma Product Manager for Resource Sharing)
• Hierarchical locate process implemented in February 2021
• More flexible locate process has led to fewer missed holdings
• Fill rates have consistently been above 60% since this change
• Alma RS article download link improvements in July 2021
• Possible to send download links between systems
• Users can download articles from their Primo accounts
• ILLiad integration improvements
• Export from Alma to ILLiad via API implemented in November 2019
• Automatic ILLiad user creation implemented in July 2021

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Other Resource Sharing Initiatives

• ProQuest Ebook ILL pilot project for Ebook Central titles
• Direct communication between Alma and ILLiad
• Being tested by Brandeis University and Middlebury College
• SUNY has started working with IDS Project on testing this
• Possible participation in Rapido
• New Ex Libris resource sharing system
• No plans to implement Rapido for SUNY at this time, but we are having conversations with Ex Libris about Rapido
• Tracking on Project Reshare and other resource sharing initiatives that could decrease our dependence on OCLC

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Questions?