The contract is signed. Now what? Alma pre-implementation can be a stressful time. While information is provided in the way of manuals, and some help with strategies and tasks is available from Ex Libris, maybe you want more. As a Voyager site, we were fortunate to have many tools available to us so that we…

The purpose of this Blog Post is to bring together some of the information about using the Voyager APIs into a simple document that shows examples of using them. API stands for "Application Programming Interface" and the available open interfaces allow interaction between Voyager and other applications. Ex Libris publishes APIs for the data that…

Author's Note:  Please be aware this workflow was devised around 2016.  The author retired in 2018, no longer has access to Alma, and posted this after-the-fact because of a request by another customer.  It is possible "old" workflows like this will no longer work due to changes in Alma.  Caveat emptor.At the Colorado School of…

Introduction The purpose of this blog post is to provide code used in the display.xsl file so that Voyager WebVoyage displays RTL (Right-to-Left) languages more elegantly than it does out of the box. This code was supplied by a Voyager customer and comes as-is.  It has been tested in Voyager 9.2.1 and 10.1.0. Additional Information…

The purpose of this blog post is to provide basic instructions for moving an item's permalink to the Full Record Display's Action Box.Remember to always back up any file you make changes to, and to test your changes in multiple browsers.If you have already implemented the Permalink configuration described in Chapter 18 of the WebVoyage…

Introduction. This blog post provides a fairly simple way to change the font color and type for a WebVoyage field tag in order to make it more visible in the record display. In this example we change the "Links" field tag to "ONLINE ACCESS", plus we change the font color to red and the font type to…

INTRODUCTIONThese instructions provide steps for changing the My Account Header Tab in the Voyager Tomcat OPAC Interface to open a link in a new tab/Window rather than in the current Window.The instructions show that the link has been changed to an external URL (in this case, http://www.google.com).You will need to backup and edit four files:header.xslinternal…

IntroductionThis blog post provides basic instructions for replacing  a MARC field (for example, the 590) with a graphic in the Voyager WebVoyage ("Tomcat") OPAC.This is accomplished by matching content in the MARC field's subfield (for example, the 590a).In these instructions, a custom template is created within the display.xsl file to handle the processing for the…

Introduction Having quick access to real-time library analytics is important for all of us. Using the Alma Analytics API Application we have set up a Springshare LibGuide using Google Charts (the URL to the LibGuide is provided below): This blog post assumes you know how to set up an API Key for the Alma Analytics…

You can configure Primo VE to harvest SpringShare LibGuides metadata and make them discoverable in Primo VE.This blog post does not cover anything that is done on the SpringShare side.It assumes you have a basic understanding of setting up a discovery import profile in Primo VE.I will present a series of documented screenshots showing how…

Note that this blog post updates and improves upon a workflow described here: https://developers.exlibrisgroup.com/blog/Contributing-titles-to-the-Colorado-Alliance-of-Research-Libraries-Library-Content-Comparison-System The following workflow uses Alma Publishing Profiles to set up monthly scheduled publishing jobs. In order to use this blog post, you should have an understanding of publishing profiles, creating and managing logical sets, and of Alma S/FTP definitions. You will…

Due to a high level of interest we are making available a zip file that has information provided by our Enterprise Systems staff related to the Alma SIS (Student Information System) integration we did for Banner. Please familiarize yourself with the information already available from Ex Libris: User Accounts and the Alma SIS.   This…

You can use the following code in your Primo NUI custom.js file to add an Altmetrics "donut" to your full record display. Note that you also need to add a snipped to your css code. That snippet is included here as well. If you are successful in adding the code, you should see something like…

Adding a link to the SHERPA/RoMEO service in Primo via a General Electronic Service is fairly easy. The purpose of this blog entry is to give you the configuration that we use at the Colorado School of Mines. It assume you understand setting up General Electronic Services. This service is based upon the existence of…

Adding a link to the SCImago Journal Rankings in Primo via a General Electronic Service is fairly easy. The purpose of this blog entry is to give you the configuration that we use at the Colorado School of Mines. It assume you understand setting up General Electronic Services. This service is based upon the existence…

(Please note that oadoi.org could perhaps be called the back-end to the unpaywall.org browser extension. It's complicated and beyond the scope of this blog post, but some sources state that using the unpaywall extension provides access to more sources than the link described here.) Adding a link to the oadoi.org open access version service in…

Springshare provides several ways to create "widgets" that can be embedded into websites, including Primo, in order to provide access to products like LibAnswers and LibChat.  This is a great way to engage your patrons and provide a high level of service at the point it is needed. This Tech Blog post would not be…

The Colorado School of Mines worked closely with Ex Libris staff to implement Social Logins for our Internal Patrons. These patrons typically pay a membership fee and they had not been able to login to Primo since we migrated to Alma in June of 2015. This loss of service was felt acutely by our patrons…

This outlines the patron purge workflow developed with the help of Ex Libris support staff and numerous colleagues at other institutions. One goal of this workflow is to prevent unintended mistakes that could purge "good" patron records. Please note that screenshots are from several different runs so specifics can change. Also note that you can…

Author Note: as of March 9, 2020, the information and instructions provided in this blog post have been superseded by this:https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/RapidILL/Implementation_Guides/Alma_Holdings_Harvest_for_RapidILLThis blog post has been left in place as a point of reference but should not be used for configuration of RapidILL. IMPORTANT NOTICE FROM THE AUTHOR (April, 2019)In August of 2017, Colorado State University realized…

MARCEdit Integration with Alma.Note from the author (July, 2019).  There are several other MarcEdit-related blog posts related to Alma in the Ex Libris Developer Network that are more recent than this blog post.  I still believe everything is correct but the Alma UI in relation to APIs may have changed. The examples below utilize the Alma…

Important notice:The code as originally included to create the Primo Link in Analytics doesn't work well any more.  I will update the zip file but will also post the new, improved code as it is used by Mines here (you will want to change the URL and the vid to match your configuration):'https://mines.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?docid=alma' || "Bibliographic…

(Note from author: This blog post describes a workflow that while it still is valid, has been supersceded by an improved workflow using Alma Publishing Profiles: https://developers.exlibrisgroup.com/blog/Using-a-Publishing-Profile-to-contribute-titles-to-the-Colorado-Alliance-of-Research-Libraries-Library-Content-Comparison-System) This article shows steps and settings for contributing titles to the Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries’ “Library Content Comparison System”. We export the physical and electronic titles separately.…

Outreach is incredibly important to us, so we wanted to use the Alma Course Reserve Reading List Owner Subscription Letter to send a functional Deep Link Brief Search Permalink to the items in the Reading List. Several people assisted in the success of this project.  I am grateful for their help. To achieve the desired…

We experienced serious abuse of one of our electronic journal providers in May 2015. The harvested SUSHI data for this vendor (one of our most important vendors) were unusable due to the abuse. We needed a solution so that our usage statistics would look "reasonable". The solution (in lieu of the vendor assisting us to…

This article describes the required steps in order to export Electronic Portfolios from Alma to RAPID: In Alma, go to Manage Jobs -> Run a Job, and select "Export Electronic Portfolios": You will be asked to select a set of the records that will be exported to RAPID. This should be a predefined set containing the population…

Converting from ID Barcode to Magstripe For the sake of efficiency and security, many campuses are implementing "one card" systems where new magstripe-embedded ID cards are replacing old "analog" IDs. In these cases libraries are often in the position to drop their old "barcoded" library cards and use these new cards for patron identication. This…

SSN to IID Concerned about patron privacy, many institutions that previously had used social security numbers (SSN) as identification numbers for students or faculty have recently begun to use institution identification numbers (IID) instead. Many libraries are also abandoning the practice of using sensitive personal data like social security numbers as identifiers in library registration.…

DescriptionCheat sheet created for staff to use during Voyager client auto-update process. Find this document in the attachments section of this entry.Incidentally, for auto-upgrade to work correctly, you must have the stanza in the voyager.ini file be correct. Ours looks like the following. Your stanza will look similar aside from the IP. Note that the…

DescriptionThe steps for adding a new Voyager Location. Find this document in the Attachments section of this entry. Author: Laura Guy Additional author(s): Institution: Colorado School of Mines Year: 2013 License: BSD style Short description: I don't add a new Voyager location very often. When I do, I use this document to help make sure I cover all the…

DescriptionAdd a link in your Action Box to WorldCat "Cite This item." Works using OCLC number for both monographs and serials. Author: Laura Guy Additional author(s): Institution: Colorado School of Mines Year: 2009 License: BSD style Short description: Use, modification and distribution of the code are permitted provided the copyright notice, list of conditions and…

Description The out of the box the tomcat version of WebVoyage includes an SFX button in the More About section of the Action Box. If you do not have SFX, you may want to remove this option. Author: Laura Guy Additional author(s): Institution: Colorado School of Mines Year: 2009 License: BSD style Short description: Use,…