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Searching In Alma And Exporting Data

Alma Tech Team

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Princeton University Library

September 26, 2024

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Outline

  • Alma Simple and Advanced Searches
  • Getting Alma Data using Export List

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What You Can Search For In Alma

Metadata records (Repository)

    • Bibliographic records - physical titles, electronic collection and portfolio titles
    • Local inventory – Physical holdings and items, electronic portfolios
    • Authority records (cataloging use only)

Other data

    • Acquisitions information
    • Patron requests
    • Courses
    • Users
    • Reading lists
    • Borrowing requests
    • Lending Requests

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Simple Search And Advanced Search

The persistent search box offers you the following methods of searching:

  • Simple Search – Search using a single search field
  • Advanced Search – Create search criteria, including search conditions
    • Allows you to design search criteria by combining conditions across different resource types or apply multiple conditions to the same search index
    • Supports a more powerful, refined search
    • Advanced search is not available for Requests, Borrowing requests, Lending requests, Funds, Vendors, and Invoices

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Alma Persistent Search Bar – Simple Search

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Search type

Search field

Zone (IZ)

Search box for entering search terms

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Select the

search type

Select the field you want to search

Simple (Basic) Search

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Based on the search type, only relevant fields are available

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Repository Searches: All, Physical, Electronic

  • Search Alma repository to view bibliographic, holdings and item records
  • The main repository search types pertain to the types of inventory recorded in the selected zone.
    • Records with Physical Inventory are retrieved via Physical titles/holdings/items search
    • Records with Electronic inventory are retrieved via Electronic titles search
    • Records with or without inventory can be retrieved via “All Titles” search
  • Formats of bibliographic records are not relevant to search types

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Types Of Inventory

  • Physical inventory
    • Holdings/items

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  • Electronic inventory
    • Portfolios

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Physical Inventory

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Item record:

  • Barcode
  • Location
  • Status
  • Process type
  • Due date
  • etc.

Holdings record (in MARC):

  • Location
  • Call number
  • Other applicable holdings information

Physical Inventory

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Electronic Inventory

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Electronic record linked to Community Zone

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Record With No Inventory

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Different Search Types – Different results

Retrieves records with or without inventory

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Search “Physical holdings” to retrieve holdings records

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Search “Physical items” to retrieve item records

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Entering Search String

  • Articles (such as the, a, an) in your search are ignored
  • Special characters, such as hyphen, dash, slash, and so forth, finds strings both with and without the special characters
  • To use the asterisk ( * ) wildcard character in your search string, place it at the end of the search string.
  • In Advanced Search, asterisk may be used at the end of the string with Contains Keywords and Not Contains Keywords.
  • Phrase search –surround the searched phrase with double quotation marks.
  • If you add other text in the search box before or after a set of words with double quotation marks around them, the text in quotation marks will not be treated as a phrase search. The phrase search functionality is limited to a single phrase in double quotation marks.

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Advanced Search

  • Allows you to design search criteria by combining conditions across different resource types or apply multiple conditions to the same search index
  • In the persistent search box, select ( ) to open the Advanced Search interface.

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Using Advanced Search – Choosing Search Types

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comparison drop-down box.

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Advanced Search

  • Select the match type in the comparison drop-down box.
  • Comparators vary depending on the field you select. 

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Can select different search types

Add additional search conditions

Duplicate current search condition

Designing your search

Select operator

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Advanced search

not available

Advanced Search not available to some search types

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All Titles Search Interface – Current View

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Sneak Preview – New “All Titles” search interface

(To be released in November 2024)

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Getting Alma Data Using Export List

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Output Alma Data To Excel Using Export List

  • From Alma search results page
  • From a set

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  • Documentation in Confluence

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From Alma Search Results Page

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Click “Export List” to output data

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Export List – Current View Or All Fields

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Excel Sheet Generated

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Output Alma Data From a Set

  • Use “Save query” from search results page to create/save a set (from Simple or Advanced Search)
  • Set can be re-run any time as needed to pull dynamic data
  • Good for ongoing data review/clean up
  • Results can be different each time

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Save Query from search results page

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From search results page > Save Query

Enter set details and save

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Click “Content” to open the set content (i.e. search results page).

Manage Sets page will display

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Output data to Excel

Open the set content

Click the “Export List” button to output data to Excel

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To access sets –

From Alma persistent menu

Admin > Manage Jobs and Sets > Manage Sets

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  • Select the Scope: All set, My sets or Public Sets
  • Select the set you want to work on
  • Click “Content” to open the set

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Thank You!

Paul Diskin (pdiskin@Princeton.edu)

Peter Green (pmgreen@Princeton.edu

Cathy Weng (cathyweng@Princeton.edu

Mark Zelesky (mzelesky@princeton.edu)