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Using Alma Analytics for ACRL/IPEDS annual library statistics

CHRISTINA L. HENNESSEY

SYSTEMS LIBRARIAN

CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE

OCTOBER 28, 2020

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Did you get an email like this?

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Who we are at California State University, Northridge (CSUN)

Almost 40,000 students
Former Millennium system until 2017
Migrated into a shared system across 23 California State University campuses in 2017
Alma, Primo (not Primo VE…yet)

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Who am I?

New to Alma/Primo April 2018
Love working with stats
Love working with Analytics
Vice-Chair of ULMS Analytics & Assessment Committee in CSUs: https://calstate.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ULMSR/overview

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I’d also like to share some of the context of me and where I’m coming from in this presentation

I started at CSUN in April 2018, had been on Millennium/Sierra/INNOPAC systems since 2002…so Alma & Primo were new to me just 2.5 years ago
I really, really love working with statistics, especially annual reporting – I used to do it in the Innovative products each year, and was happy to take what I had learned there to do statistics in the Ex Libris products
I really love working with Analytics as well…people often are worried they are bothering me when asking for a new report in Analytics, but it really is one of my favorite parts of my job and I would be fine with working with Analytics all day if I could
I am currently the Vice-Chair of the ULMS Analytics and Assessment Committee – I’ll be referring to that group a lot today – one of the main goals of this group is to make these kinds of reports so each CSU doesn’t have to do as much work. You can follow this link later for all kinds of great resources that this group has put together, we have a wiki from the last several years of what we have done.

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Assumptions for this session

Some familiarity with Alma Analytics
Okay to be new to ACRL & IPEDS stats
Any position in the library is okay
Need Alma roles to see certain reports
You are on Oracle Analytics Server, not OBIEE 11: https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Release_Notes/2020/Alma_2020_Release_Notes?mon=202011BASE

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So there is so much that one can cover on Alma Analytics, and so much that one can cover on ACRL & IPEDS.

So I wanted to go ahead and let you some assumptions for this session and to know the boundaries of what I’ll be covering today.

This will be an intermediate session, somewhat. I am not going to go into the basics of Alma Analytics, I will assume you have used it a little bit and now how to get there, you know the difference between the Criteria tab and the Results tab, but I will be showing things that might be new to you since the recent Analytics migration or some other tips and tricks you didn’t know already.
Maybe you are here because your administration just asked you for some numbers and you’d like to know why. You don’t have to have much knowledge about ACRL & IPEDS as I’ll be talking about that as well.
You don’t have to be a systems person, or a cataloger, or a circulation person to do these reports. It helps to have knowledge of your own system, and to know the right people to ask in particular departments, but you don’t have to be that person yourself.
However, you might need access to parts of Alma that you didn’t have before, perhaps to see circulation information where you couldn’t before, so you may need some Alma role changes before starting this work.
I believe most of you migrated to the new version of Alma Analytics in July 2020: Oracle Analytics Server, If you did not yet, you will be migrating this Sunday morning! So the Analytics screens here might not look familiar, but they will soon! This link here will show you the migration schedule.
If you are not sure which one you have, Old Analytics looked like this when you started it, and when you wanted to create a new report, you chose: New->Analysis
New Analytics looks like this when you start it, and to create a new report, you choose: Create->Analysis.

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What I will and won’t be covering today

Only covering physical resources today:

40A – Physical titles
40a – Physical volumes
42A – media physical items
60A – circulation of physical items

Not covering ACRL/IPEDS stats that can’t be determined from Alma Analytics

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I also want to lay out what I will and won’t be covering today.

So there are many of the ACRL/IPEDS stats that can be determined in Alma Analytics, including those related to e-resources. I will be showing you how to calculate four of the physical ones today: 40 (physical titles), 40a (physical volumes), 42a (media physical items), and 60a (circulation of physical items). I will point out which other answers can be determined through Alma Analytics later, including the e-resources ones, but I will not be covering how to calculate the e-resources ones. Maybe another session!
I also won’t be covering some of the things that can’t be determined by Alma Analytics, like librarian staffing and salaries, preservation, operations, and maintenance (24-27), institutional repository information (50 & 51), “information services to individuals” (reference transactions) [64-67], library hours (72), student enrollment (90 & 91). That last one you could run on students in your database and get a number but you probably have more formal ways at your institutions to find that out.

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What are ACRL & IPEDS?

ACRL = Association for College & Research Libraries. Division of ALA.
Yearly survey: ACRL Academic Library Trends and Statistics Survey (ALTSS)
Survey managed by Counting Opinions
IPEDS = Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System
Recommended that you do ACRL survey before IPEDS

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I don’t want to assume that everyone knows what ACRL is, especially if you are new to libraries or to academic libraries. ACRL, Association for College & Research Libraries, is a division of the American Library Association. About 10,000 individuals and libraries are members of ACRL.
ACRL does a yearly survey, administered by the ACRL Academic Library Trends and Statistics Survey Editorial Board and designed to gather information at the national levels from all types of academic libraries.
Managed by a company named Counting Opinions, which might be a URL that seems “sus” when you go to submit your stats…since there’s nothing opinion about these stats, it is all fact! But a URL with Counting Opinions in it is correct!
IPEDS stands for “Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System”. This is a larger system outside of libraries that your data also eventually ends up at as well.
It is recommended that you do the ACRL survey first, that will give you all the data you need for IPEDS. As a matter of fact, they give you a downloadable file when you are done that you can use for your IPEDS input. Isn’t that awesome?

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Where does the data end up? ACRL

ACRL Metrics: https://www.acrlmetrics.com/

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Where does the data end up? IPEDS

IPEDS: HTTPS://NCES.ED.GOV/IPEDS/USE-THE-DATA

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When are statistics due?

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When ACRL/IPEDS wants it

When does your institution want it?

So you might be asking, what time of year do I need to do this, when are these due?

First off, ACRL will accept it starting this month, but the final day it is due is Sunday, February 28, 2021. No leap year next year to give you an extra day.
IPEDS has a later due date but you’ll be done with those stats already when you finish the ACRL work, and you can’t submit those until December.
What are the deadlines for your institution? So in the request email I showed on the 2^nd slide, you’ll see that our deadline for our sections at CSUN is December 1 instead. Even though not due until Feb 2021, our admin likes to get this from us in early December so they have time to ask about discrepancies & questions as they look through the data. So check deadlines with your own administration before working towards February.

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What is the reporting period?

Likely July 1, 2019 – June 30, 2020

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When can/should you run the statistics?

Inventory numbers: July 1
Circulation numbers: anytime
Acquisitions & expenses : might need to wait for a central announcement

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So you have your deadline and you wonder when you can get this data?

First, it’s not the end of the world if you haven’t yet, but you’ll want to run anything dealing with inventory (physical or electronic) as close to July 1 as possible. It’s a little more trouble and unreliable in Alma Analytics if you want to make a snapshot of what exactly your institution held on that day. I see that I did mine July 7 last year – after fiscal close, conference presentation, husband’s birthday, July 4^th holiday, etc. This date goes for both physical & electronic, so 40-44 in particular. You could try something with bib creation date or item creation date if you wanted to. This might not be the worst year to be late on this anyway, if you are like us, you aren’t adding nearly as much to your collection since July 1 this year but in other years you’ll want to have a sense if there was a big weeding project or a big order processed so these numbers are as close to July 1 numbers as you can get.
The good news on circulation numbers is you can run them anytime and they will be correct, even something from a few years ago if you have been in Alma that long. Circulation numbers will be based off of loan date and that doesn’t change, and it will be easy to just limit reports to the fiscal year in Alma.
With reports on expenses, you might need to wait for a decision or an announcement like this one to figure out how to
In our case, “CO” means “Chancellor’s Office” and you’ll need to get some information from any central organization you have that involves expenses to make sure you get those numbers right. Also, your fiscal close should be completed first.

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Decide who is doing what

Make a chart of assignments

CSUN
CUNY: https://guides.cuny.edu/ld.php?content_id=43404723

No assumptions

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Before you get started: in general

Can’t just use the data from other surveys
Check that you have the latest instructions (2019-2020): https://acrl.countingopinions.com/docs/acrl/ALTSSEB-2020-survey-instructions-10-01.pdf
Review the ACRL LibGuide: ACRL survey help: https://acrl.libguides.com/stats/surveyhelp
Get last year’s stats (or several years back)
Find last year’s notes
Take notes on everything

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So maybe you did some recent circulation statistics for some other assessment you were doing, and maybe you just want to re-use those. Probably not. We’ll be going over the very specific instructions for the ACRL stats, and it might be very different than what you were trying to measure otherwise. For example, maybe you included all circulation but in ACRL, you don’t include things like laptops and equipment circulation, which might make a huge difference in your numbers
In the case of these statistics, it’s really important that you have the latest version. The one for 2019-2020 was just revised this month! In prep for this presentation I Googled “ACRL annual survey” and I got the wrong one!
ACRL has a good LibGuide on the survey that you can review as well.
You’ll want one that has this text at the top, or follow this URL.
At the front of the document, it will have text like this – hey, here is what has changed this year.
So especially if this is the first year YOU are doing this one, or if you are new to the system, it is helpful to have last year’s (or several years’) information so you are not off by too much (or be ready to add an asterisk). You don’t want to be trying to fit to last year’s data but it is good to know what has been reported in the past so you can sort of know when to stop checking your data.
If you DID do these stats last year, do you remember exactly what you did? Me neither! Do you have that information in your home office or did you leave it at work in March 2020 thinking we were only going to be away for a few weeks? Me too! So you’ll want to allow time to find documents, notes, etc. as you might need to go the office.
Take notes on everything you do as part of this, even if it turns out to be wrong. Export lots of reports. Start now, don’t try to do it later!

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Before you get started: Alma

Can you use Analytics that someone else created?
Make sure you have the Alma roles you need
Need an account in the Network Zone for some reports

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There are also some things you’ll want to do in Alma before you get started.

I’m going to show you today how to create reports from scratch but I’m also going to show you where the CSU keeps their reports so you can start with those too. You will have to make your own modifications but it can save time and is a great place to start. The Analytics Community area has reports from various institutions and consortia.
As I mentioned earlier in “assumptions”, you might need access to parts of Alma that you didn’t have before, not just in Analytics, perhaps to see circulation information where you couldn’t before, so you may need some Alma role changes before starting this work. Alma roles can be a bit of a bear to figure out so you might have to make or ask for a few changes to get it right.
I’m only going to be showing reports in the Institutional Zone (IZ) today but there are many reports that need to be done in the Network Zone (NZ) if you have one of those. That requires a separate login than the one you use for regular institution Alma. If you are in the CSUs, you ask our host, Brandon Dudley, for an account, but I found online documentation that indicated were three other people that I could contact, none of which work for the CSUs anymore, especially if that person was part of your migration. So you might need some time to get that account or to figure out who can get you that account so you can do those reports.

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This is 40

40 Big A (40A) = Physical books, title count
40B = Digital/Electronic books, title count
40 little a (40a) = Books – volume count

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Start with 40A: Physical Books, Title Count

Titles (not volumes)
Searchable in discovery
No: serials, microforms, maps, non-print, uncataloged
Gov docs okay
Include open access

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40A: start in the IZ, Physical Items area

Institution Zone
Not the Titles subject area! https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Product_Documentation/010Alma_Online_Help_(English)/080Analytics/Alma_Analytics_Subject_Areas/Titles
Use: Physical Items subject area https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Product_Documentation/010Alma_Online_Help_(English)/080Analytics/Alma_Analytics_Subject_Areas/Physical_Items

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So let’s try to create this report now in Analytics.

So for the rest of the presentation, I will not be doing a live demo in Analytics but screenshots.

If you are a regular Analytics user, you probably know that Analytics was down most of last Wednesday so I didn’t want to take a chance.

I also didn’t want to take a chance on slowness…sometimes we see that in Analytics presentations, and that takes away from what I want to show you.

If we have time at the end, we can go into live Analytics for particular questions, however.

1. First, let’s note that this report and all the reports I am showing today are in the Institution Zone, the IZ

2. The next thing we need to figure out is what subject area to create this one in. You might guess that you would try the Titles subject area, but that area is only updated once a month!

3. The physical items area is what we want, although we are looking at bibs for this one. So we’ll need to make our own measurement with a formula

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40A: Make your own measurement, part 1

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40A: Make your own measurement, part 2

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40A: add resource type

Bibliographic Details.Resource Type

Physical Item Details.Material Type

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The next thing you want to add to your report is something to indicate what type of material this is, as you saw in the description there is a lot we want to not include. There are two types we are going to use in our reports today:

Bibliographic Details.Resource Type
Looks like this
Physical Item Details.Material Type
Looks like this

5. We are focusing on bibliographic records at this point so we want to use resource type here, but later we will use the material type. So you would add the resource type to your report.

This is also really dependent on how you set up your system in conjunction with a Network Zone, are you all using the same resource types and material types, so you can compare data? You may need to have a committee or group decide what resource types and material types should be used for these reports and what should not.

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40A: results so far, no filters

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40A: add a summary count

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40A: limit to titles you still have

Nothing ever deleted from Alma Analytics – use “lifecycle”
Bibliographic Details.Bibliographic Lifecycle = In Repository, Deleted
Physical Item Details.Lifecycle = Active, Deleted

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So this is where it really helps to run the Inventory measures as close to July 1 as possible as we need to eliminate everything that no longer exists in the system and you may have done some weeding since July 1.

1. You probably know that nothing is ever deleted from Alma Analytics, so you’ll need to add a filter to exclude anything that used to exist in your system but no longer does. This is through a concept named “lifecycle”

2. However, there is a lifecycle for bibs and a lifecycle for items, and they have different terms, so you’ll want to make sure to use the right one here. We are working with bibs so we use the bib lifecycle one. The values you get in there are: In Repository, Deleted

3. vs. what is in the item details lifecycle = Active, Deleted.

4. We just want to know what is available in bibs right now so we choose In Repository

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40A: results so far, repository filter

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40A: limit to bibliographic level

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40A: results so far – adding bib level

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40A: suppressed from discovery

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The next thing we want to limit to is we don’t want to include things that are suppressed from discovery.

This might include things like equipment or laptops or internal records for you…

But it might also be your print reserves so watch out! We suppressed our print reserve records in August 2020 when we realized it was confusing for students and faculty as it was something they did not have access to. We did our inventory in July so this was not an issue for us in our numbers, but do you have something that you suppressed due to being closed that really is an active part of your collection? You’ll want to be careful with this here.

Also! Much like lifecycle, you need to make sure you use the right “suppressed from discovery”

In the physical items area, there are four of them. You want to use the bibliographic details one here.
So we will add this to our columns
Add the filter – Suppressed from Discovery = No
Our current filter looks like this

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40A: results so far, add discovery filter

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40A: limit to resource types

Atlas-Physical, Book – Physical, Braille Book – Physical, Braille Music – Physical, Manuscripts – Physical, Notated music – Physical

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40A: results with all filters

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Modifying 40A report to look at library/location

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Add filter for location on 40A

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Set up this report with a prompt

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Get data out of the prompt for the narrative

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Prompt looks like this

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Prompt results so far

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Add a narrative

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Add text to the narrative

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Move narrative to the top

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Show location limits in narrative

Check off Contains HTML markup
Add <br> tag to get these on different lines
@{Location_limit} to get locations from prompt in your narrative

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40a: Books – volume count

Volumes, not titles
Searchable in discovery
No: microforms, maps, non-print, uncataloged
Gov docs okay
Not added into 44

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40a: start in the IZ, Physical Items area

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40a: filter on material type

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40a: results

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42A: Physical Media

Media materials
Title count
Microforms, A/V, cartographic, graphic, 2D & 3D
Microform titles not boxes/rolls
No media serials here
“any celestial body at any scale”

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42A: IZ, Physical Items

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42A: add resource type filters

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42A: results

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60A: Total Physical Circulation

Physical circulation only
Reserves included
No renewals
No in-house circulation
No ILL (in 80-82 instead)
No equipment/computers

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Now we are moving on to circulation!

Here is the description from the ACRL for this one:

There is a 60B for electronic/digital circulation so this is just physical things
Reserves are included
No renewals, luckily this is kept separately in Alma Analytics from regular circulations
No in-house circulation, also a thing kept separately in Alma Analytics
No ILL, this one is important, you need to know how an ILL circulation works in your system, whether it be global interlibrary loan, or something more local like our CSU borrowing named CSU+, so you can exclude it here. These are measured in 80-82.
If you are like us, you circulate computers, equipment, cameras, etc. to your patrons and those circulation numbers are pretty high! You’ll want to make sure those get excluded here. However, if you loan computers or Kindles or some device that has e-books on it, you WILL count that here, but only once instead of how many books were on that device. I like to think about how many meetings this committee had to decide on that exception!

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60A: IZ, Fulfillment

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60A: results with no limits

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Name of your fiscal year?

Alma Config – Acquisitions – General – Fund and Ledger Fiscal Period

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60A: filter for fiscal year

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60A: check strange locations

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60A: more filters

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Other numbers that can be answered in Analytics

E-resources(40B, 43B, 60B-63B). NZ vs. IZ
Interlibrary Loan circulation (80-82). NZ
Acquisitions/expenses (20-25). IZ with some understanding of NZ
Refer to CSU 2017 webinar recording and notes for some help on IZ vs. NZ: https://calstate.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ULMSR/pages/227049473/ACRL+Webinar+Notes

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So that’s all the demos I’m going to show in my presentation today but I wanted to note some other numbers that CAN be determined in Analytics. These will vary according to your setup but I wanted to mention them here.

Anything e-resources – inventory, circulation, some expenses – can be figured through Analytics. Depending on your system and setup, some of these might be in the IZ but most in the NZ
Your interlibrary loan circulation can be determined from the NZ, also depending on your setup. If you have a resource sharing group across systems like we do, they will probably have their own instructions on how everyone should get their stats (or they will provide them to you, even better!)
Acquisitions/expense data – note what your central office has said about how to report expenses that you have locally vs. shared expenses.
Our Analytics & Assessment committee has a good list at this page that indicates what can be run where.

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Feel free to use CSU reports!

Shared Folders/Community/Reports/Institutions/CalState/ACRL IPEDS Official ULMS folder

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What questions do you have?

Christina L. Hennessey

Systems Librarian

California State University, Northridge

Christina.Hennessey@csun.edu

Free taco: https://www.tacobell.com/stealataco/

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