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Alma Resource Sharing in the SUNY System

October 26, 2021

www.suny.edu

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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

www.suny.edu

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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

www.suny.edu

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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

www.suny.edu

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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

www.suny.edu

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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

www.suny.edu

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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?

www.suny.edu

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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

www.suny.edu

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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

www.suny.edu

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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

www.suny.edu

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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

www.suny.edu

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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

www.suny.edu

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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?

www.suny.edu

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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

www.suny.edu

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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

www.suny.edu

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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

www.suny.edu

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Questions?

www.suny.edu