Alma/Primo VE News and Highlights FYE 2022

Katie Utschig
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Katie Utschig
Thursday, July 1, 2021 8:18 AM
All Switch Librarians
Alma/Primo VE - News and Highlights (July)

BIG NEWS
SWITCH is taking the show on the road
SWITCH is vacating its office space at Alverno and Jason and I will be working from home. Two days/week,
though, we will be running a circuit through our member libraries. Each of us will plan to be at your library
every four weeks. Katie will be one the road Mondays and Wednesdays; Jason, Tuesdays and Thursdays. While
you do not need to entertain us, we hope our physical presence in your libraries will make it easier for us to
collaborate on Alma/Primo projects and better understand your needs and workflows. To make sure all our
calendars are in synch, we will be sending out meeting requests for visit days the balance of summer.
In light of in person visits, I am cancelling the standing Zoom meeting on Tuesday mornings. Any
questions/problems that arise between visits can be handled via phone, email, or support tickets.
ALMA
Cloud App – Change RS Request Type
Sometimes our patrons request a book that is only available electronically from our partners OR submit a
request on a book and really only want a portion of the book. If we can ascertain that a portion of the book
that would fall under fair use is an option, this cloud app allows you to change the request type from book to
article so that you can supply the additional information needed for your partner to accept and fulfill the
request. It is also possible to change an article request to book (e.g. patron requests multiple chapters of a
book or the partner does not permit scans of the material).

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From the drop-down menu, select the request you wish to transform.

If the request cannot be transformed, you will receive a message indicating why it cannot be altered.

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In this case, we can edit the request and change the status to “Ready to be sent”. From this status, you can
Change to an article request

Now you can edit the request and complete the form fields for article/chapter title. Use the journal title field
for the book title.

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Then change the requested format to digital before saving the modified request.

If the electronic title is available from a SWITCH partner, you can manually create the Rota and send the
request to the first active partner.

If you would like to enable and install this cloud app, please send a ticket to support@switchinc.org.
Fulfillment - Home Delivery
In response to a query about flagging patrons for home delivery at Cardinal Stritch, I reviewed a variety of
workflow options and pick-slip customizations that can facilitate home delivery at any library. Please see this
new page in the wiki for full details:
http://switchlibraries.pbworks.com/w/page/145451235/Home%20Delivery
Acquisitions - Interested Users
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If your library uses purchase requests as part of your Acquisitions workflow, the July release (July 4) includes
enhanced control over when to send notifications to the interested user in the purchase request form:

OTB, the first two options are checked by default, but we can configure this to not have any defaults set so
that the person creating the request chooses exactly the level of contact desired. For example, you may wish
to register that you purchased something at the request of a professor without necessarily wanting to alert
them when it is received.
PRIMO
Stop Words
Ever wondered why some searches produce an unusually large number of hits when you would expect very
few? Nancy Siker shared a great example last month with a known title search for Between the world and me
by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Even when she searched on just her library scope and limited the results to physical
books held by MIAD, she got 2000+ results:
https://switcham.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,between%20the%20world%20and%20me
&tab=LibraryCatalog&search_scope=MIAD&vid=01SLCO_AM:MIAD&facet=tlevel,include,available_p&facet=rt
ype,include,books&lang=en&offset=0
Fortunately, the known book was the most relevant so it appeared at the top of the list, but the subsequent
results are anything but relevant, matching only on the word “world” because all the other words in the title
are stop words. To ensure that stop words are included in a phrase search, be sure to enclose the phrase in “ “
(e.g. “between the world and me”).
For a complete list of the current English stop words in CDI, click here:
https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/@api/deki/files/108317/stopwords_en.txt?revision=1
Bookmarklet to switch views in Primo
If you share an instance with another Alma, you have no doubt experienced the frustration of using “Display in
Discovery” or the Alma dashboard Primo search widget only to find that you are seeing your record in your
partner’s view because they are the current default Primo view in configuration. We have all figured out that
we can replace our partner’s code in the VID portion of the URL, but you have to find the right spot to make
the change. A nice alternative is creating a bookmarklet to swap the VID for you.
To create a bookmarklet, go to any web page and click the star icon and Add bookmark

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Change the Name in the bookmark and click More

Replace the url (highlighted in green) with the following depending on your shared instance and click Save:
AC/MIAD:
javascript:location.href=location.href.replace(/discovery.*/,'discovery/search?vid=01SLCO_AM:'+prompt('VID
?','Your View Code'));
SHSST/SFS:
javascript:location.href=location.href.replace(/discovery.*/,'discovery/search?vid=01SLCO_SHSFDS:'+prompt('
VID?','Your View Code'));
MMWLC:
javascript:location.href=location.href.replace(/discovery.*/,'discovery/search?vid=01SLCO_SHSFDS:'+prompt('
VID?','Your View Code'));

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Then when you are in your partner’s Primo view and want to switch to your own, just select the bookmark to
change the view (I made one for each instance):

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Enter your view code (the part after the “:” – e.g., 01SCLO_SHSFDS:SHSST) and click okay.

Voila!

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ANALYTICS
Ex Libris Dashboards
There are a number of great OTB dashboards developed by Ex Libris in Analytics that you can access by subject
area under Shared Folders>>Alma>>[Subject Area]>>Dashboards. Many of them have useful filters to help drill
down to your library even in shared instances.

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OTHER
SIFT
Looking to freshen up your information literacy instruction? Dyan Barbeau at Cardinal Stritch recently told me
about the SIFT method for evaluating web sources developed by Mike Caulfield, Director of Network and
Blended Learning at Washington State University Vancouver. The acronym stands for Stop, Investigate
(source), Find (better), Trace (back to original source/context). Caulfield has developed a series of 5 lessons
that can be used to guide students through the method with plenty of practice applying each concept. You can
find the complete course here: https://www.notion.so/Check-Please-Starter-Courseae34d043575e42828dc2964437ea4eed. Alternatively, you can check out his series of short videos on
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZQViEcMb0MGkkgHqLgcAktrigV9z_QUG.

Katie Utschig

Consortium Coordinator
SWITCH Library Consortium
10

3401 South 39th Street
PO Box 343922
Milwaukee, WI 53234-3922
Office# 414-382-6710 (M)
Cell# 414-214-0134 (T-F)

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Katie Utschig
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Sent:
To:
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Katie Utschig
Monday, August 2, 2021 3:53 PM
All Switch Librarians
Alma/Primo VE - News and Highlights (August)

ALMA
Customize your task list
Many of us have multiple roles in Alma because we fill in or overlap in some areas. This can result in a task list
that is so full, that we miss that tasks that actually demand our unique attention. But now you can help
wrangle that task list into submission by clicking on the wrench icon.

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From there you can re-order the task groups

Or drag and hide groups

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NOTE: This is only an option for the top-level Task icon – not the task widget.

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Shortcuts Customization
For those who love keyboard shortcuts over mouse clicks, be sure to check out the shortcuts customization
link under the top-level user options. Click on the person icon.

Then click shortcut customizations

There you will be able to see the shortcuts that are currently available. You cannot create new ones, but you
can toggle existing shortcuts off as desired.

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PRIMO
PDF link for Unpaywall Links in Brief Results
Primo can now display a PDF icon in the brief results if a PDF is available through Unpaywall. Where available,
this is a great feature that saves clicks so I turned it on in the instances managed by SWITCH. If you find that
you do not like this feature for one reason or another, just let us know and we can turn it back off again.

Copyright Message now embedded in Resource Sharing Form

With the August release, libraries that have turned on the copyright declaration message for Resource Sharing will be
pleased to know that the declaration now appears at the bottom of the form (rather than opening a second form that
the patron has to confirm reading before the request can be processed.
Before this would appear AFTER you clicked SEND REQUEST
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Now, it is part of the form itself. This is a huge improvement so libraries that opted not to turn on the declaration
because they wanted to minimize clicks no longer have to factor that into their decision.

Using Tags to Augment Discovery
MIAD has recently embarked on an initiative to decolonize the curriculum and the library is exploring how
they can improve discovery of pertinent resources already in their collection. One option under consideration
is crowd-sourcing this project and enlisting the university community (or at least tasking student workers)
with applying tags to bibliographic records discovered in Primo. Even articles can be tagged. For information
on how to set up tagging for your library, please see this wiki article:
http://switchlibraries.pbworks.com/w/page/145451955/Using%20Tags%20to%20Augment%20Discovery
Wondering how you might use tags in your library? Check out this poster presented by staff at UC Irvine to
highlight areas of their collection: https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4km266d9

Katie Utschig
Consortium Coordinator
SWITCH Library Consortium
3401 South 39th Street
PO Box 343922
Milwaukee, WI 53234-3922
Office# 414-382-6710 (M)
Cell# 414-214-0134 (T-F)

6

Katie Utschig
From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:

Katie Utschig
Wednesday, September 1, 2021 10:58 AM
All Switch Librarians
Alma/Primo VE - News and Highlights (September)

ALMA
User Management - Best Practices

If you need to manually create a new patron record, several fields must be completed correctly to ensure smooth
circulation, delivery of loan receipts, and accurate circulation statistics. To ensure that all these fields are completed,
they have now been flagged as mandatory in instances managed by SWITCH. However, just as important as completing
the fields is using the correct values for free text fields where drop-down menus are not configurable. Please review the
following as we start a new semester:
 Primary ID
o External patron Primary IDs must match the SIS if you rely on SIS loads to manage your patrons
 Job Description
o Patrons must follow the pattern [LibraryCode] Patron (e.g. AC Patron, MMU Patron)
o Necessary for SWITCH circulation statistics. For more information, see this Wiki article:
http://switchlibraries.pbworks.com/w/page/143721978/Job%20Description
 Email address
o At least one email address is required, and one email address must be marked Primary
 Additional Identifiers
o If you want to be able to scan a patron library card barcode, create an identifier of type Barcode under
the Identifiers tab
If you have created new users in the past couple months, please take a moment to run the following reports in analytics
(/shared/Community/Reports/Consortia/Switch Consortia/SWITCH Recommended Clean-up):
 Patrons missing a preferred email
 Patrons missing a proper job description
 Patrons missing a user group
 Patrons missing Resource Sharing Library
Let me know if you have any questions about how to fix any problematic patron records.

Resource Sharing – Best Practices

With the start of classes, we are also starting to see an increase in Resource Sharing requests. Now is a great time to
review some common “problem” statuses and best practices for resource sharing.
 Borrowing Statuses
o Ready to be sent – SWITCH partners
 Check Google Scholar (https://scholar.google.com/?oi=gsb00&lookup=0&hl=en) for free access to
pdf’s in institutional repositories as well as open access journals/collections. Chrome and Firefox
even have plug-ins that make it easy to highlight an article title and then search Google Scholar
with a simple click. An audit last spring of rejected lending requests, found that a full quarter of
requests that were ultimately rejected by a SWITCH partner were freely available through
Google Scholar. Save your patrons (and your partners) a lot of time and check GS first.
 Make sure the citation is complete and correct. If you can see that the citation is incomplete,
please try to augment it so that the owning library can quickly retrieve and scan the requested
material. Sometimes patrons place requests on book reviews when they actually are trying to
request the book. If you can confirm that is the case, I recommend using the Change RS Type
Request Cloud app using these Wiki instructions:
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http://switchlibraries.pbworks.com/w/page/145998705/How%20to%20Convert%20Resource%
20Sharing%20Type



o Expired
 Check your hold shelf. These are likely materials that you received and put on hold for a patron
who never picked them up. If you have several of these, you may want to also review your
workflow for handling the Expired Hold Shelf.
o Locate Failed
 Typically these are requests that were received on items that exist in your inventory but for one
reason or another could not be requested from your inventory when the patron placed their
request. Use Locate Resource to check your inventory. If you can fulfill the request from your
own inventory, create a physical item request (or physical digitization request) on the patron’s
behalf and then cancel the Resource Sharing Request. If you cannot fulfill the request in-house,
edit the request, manually add the appropriate partners, and then click Send.
o Shipped Digitally
 Change status to completed to clear them from your active queue.
Lending Statuses
o Being Processed – Update date > 2 days
 If an item has the status of being processed for more than a day, it is likely missing or already on
loan. Check the status of the item. If the item is not due back within a month, just reject the
request. If the item is due back soon, general message the borrowing partner and ask if they
want to wait for the item’s return.
o Expired
 Requests that have been expired have already been rejected by Alma. You can manually mark the
request complete.
o Locate Failed
 Locate failed typically happens when more than one resource can fulfill the request requiring staff
to use Search or Locate to select the appropriate resource. If the request cannot be fulfilled for
some reason, reject it.
o Created Lending Request
 Created lending requests may happen when both electronic and physical inventory exist that
could fulfill a request. Alma requires staff to choose how to fulfill the request. If you want
student workers to pull a physical resource, you can use Manage Fulfillment to initiate the pick
from shelf workflow. If you can fulfill it immediately from an electronic resource, you do not
need to Manage Fulfillment first. Instead you can Ship Digitally from the request or use
Fulfillment>>Deliver Digital Documents to complete the request.
 Created lending requests may also happen when a patron has requested a physical book, but Alma
located the electronic version in your library. Reject these requests immediately. The lending
library most likely has another SWITCH partner that owns the physical title.
o Scan in failures when processing bins at Borrowing Library
 Not everything coming in the bins is managed through Resource Sharing. Check the slip!
 HOLD SHELF: Your library is just a remote hold shelf for the owning library. Select the
owning institution before scanning in the barcode. The hold shelf notice will be sent
from the home institution.
 COURTESY PICK-UP: These items have already been checked out by the owning library.
There is nothing to scan in. Just place the items on the shelf.
 RESOURCE SHARING REQUEST: The lending library most likely failed to scan in the item.
While it is possible to manually receive the item from the borrowing request, this is
not recommended because the item is still on the lending libraries pick list

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and still appears in place in the lending library

The resource sharing queue DOES indicate that the item was received by the partner,
but the barcode is not associated with the request.

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and if the item is subsequently scanned in by the lender, the request status will be out
of sync with the status in the borrowing library

If you are trying to process your bin and run into a problem, I can easily resolve the issue
if the lender is a SWITCH-managed library. Feel free to call, text, or email for assistance
OR contact your resource sharing/circulation counterpart at the lending library.

Course Reserves

Just a reminder to apply an in-house use to every physical item on your active courses while the course is active. A single
in-house use ensures that you can generate loan statistics on all of your course reserve titles from Analytics – Fulfillment
Subject Area when the semester is over (or anytime in the future). There are a couple ways to do this:
 Arm a student worker with a laptop and scanner and have them do a scan in with in-house use on each item on
your reserve. This provides a good opportunity to double-check that the item’s current location in Alma is
reserves because Alma will produce a re-shelve message each time an item is scanned.
 Use the Bulk Scan In Cloud App that has been made available in all instances managed by SWITCH. For complete
information on the Bulk Scan In approach, please see the new documentation in the SWITCH Wiki:
http://switchlibraries.pbworks.com/w/page/145990371/Bulk%20Scan%20to%20Register%20In-House%20Use

PRIMO
Harvest LibGuides in PrimoVE

A recent exchange on the Alma-L email list reminded me that LibGuides can be harvested for discovery in Primo VE. OTB
I did not think this added a lot of value, but the European Parliament Library developed a normalization rule for the
harvest that looks pretty good. Look, for example, at this search on keywords global warming when you apply resource
type LibGuide to the results:
https://europarl.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,global%20warming&tab=Everything&se
arch_scope=MyInst_and_CI&vid=32EPA_INST:32EPA_V1&facet=rtype,include,libguide&offset=0
You can also search all of their LibGuides:
https://europarl.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,ALLLIBGUIDES&tab=Everything&search
_scope=MyInst_and_CI&vid=32EPA_INST:32EPA_V1&offset=0
If you use LibGuides and would like to harvest their content into Primo VE discovery searches, submit a ticket to
support@switchinc.org.

Patron Request Instruction

Sometimes it takes a while for Primo to process a submitted request. Ex Libris made a big improvement last year when
they disabled the Send button if it had already been clicked, but they do not currently provide a spinning wheel or some
other kind of indication that anything is happening before you get the Request Success message. This may prompt
students to refresh the page and submit the request a second time, resulting in duplicate requests in Alma. I have not
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yet figured out a satisfactory solution to this problem, but instruction might help. So if you are teaching patrons how to
place a request in Primo, please mention that it can take 10-20 seconds before the confirmation message appears.

OTHER
SWITCH Information Literacy Tutorials

The SWITCH Information Literacy tutorials that were developed on Alverno’s LibGuides platform have been removed.
Jac Sinclair at Alverno has created a new tutorial that anyone can link to in its stead. You can find that tutorial here:
https://libguides.alverno.edu/research/welcome

Katie Utschig
Consortium Coordinator
SWITCH Library Consortium
3401 South 39th Street
PO Box 343922
Milwaukee, WI 53234-3922
Office# 414-382-6710 (M)
Cell# 414-214-0134 (T-F)

5

Katie Utschig
From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:

Katie Utschig
Monday, October 4, 2021 2:19 PM
All Switch Librarians
Alma/Primo VE News and Highlights - October

ALMA
Electronic Resource Management Librarians – Monitor CZ Community Updates Task List
ERM Librarians, I highly recommend adding a monthly task to your calendars – reviewing the CZ Updates.
There is an overwhelming amount of information in the updates and frankly too much for anyone to stay on
top of unless they solely work with electronic resources. However, one thing you will want to look for is any
service that was deleted during a CZ update.
Start at Resources>>Manage Inventory>>Community Zone Updates

By default the list may be set to show all updates from the past 30 days, but you can change it by clicking the
calendar icon. I opted to look at the entire year – if you do it the 2 nd of every month, you can choose Last
Month

Filter by Report Type=Electronic service deleted. If there are any in the list, you can click on the hyperlink to
access the collection. In shared instances, you will be able to see the available for group to determine if it
affects your library.
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Click on the Additional Tab and scroll down to the Service to see how many portfolios are in the service

A small number is a very good clue that this is a collection you chose to manage individual electronic titles –
titles that have probably not been accessible to your patrons since the CZ Update.
From the menu options, click Portfolio List

The black house means the portfolio exists in your repository but is inactive. If you run into this situation, I
suggest you export the list so that you identify all the titles you will need to activate in a different collection in
the Community Zone.

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Now you need to find a different collection in the Community Zone to provide a link resolver for these titles. In
this case, there were many Oxford University Collections to choose from, but I preferred this one because of
the article-level linking, CDI coverage, etc.

Activate the collection

If, as in this example, you are only selecting specific portfolios, make sure not to check “Automatically activate
new portfolios”

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and then in Step 3 of the activation wizard, select Manual activation

After you have finished activating the collection, you can edit the service and add the portfolios from the
community under the portfolio tab.

Then I used the list I exported from the old collection to load the titles – making sure the portfolio coverage
information is the same.

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Once they have all been added, click Save.

As always, test access!
Now you can deactivate and delete the service (including its inactive portfolios) from the old collection. Once
you have gotten confirmation that the portfolios have been deleted, you can delete the old collection.
Electronic Resource Management Librarians – Boosting access to purchased resources
Libraries can spend thousands of dollars providing current access to journal titles whose back issues may also
be available through Badger Link databases. If you provide your patrons a list of available portfolios for any
given journal or article search, why not ensure that they see your paid access first?
You can control the order in which your online services appear in Configuration>>Fulfillment>>Discovery
Interface Logic>>Online Services Order

To boost a particular interface or collection, click Add to top

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Scroll down (or Ctrl F) to find the collection

Click Add to Top

If there are multiple collections in the list, use the arrows to position the collection in the order in which you
would want them to appear in Primo

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Now, instead of being buried here:

OUP is here:

OTHER
WiLS has added new vendor partners
JSTOR and Kanopy have been added to WiLS roster. If you currently have subscriptions with either vendor, be
sure to see if you can get better pricing with WiLS.

Katie Utschig

Consortium Coordinator
7

SWITCH Library Consortium
3401 South 39th Street
PO Box 343922
Milwaukee, WI 53234-3922
Office# 414-382-6710
Cell# 414-214-0134

8

Katie Utschig
From:
Sent:
To:

Subject:

Katie Utschig
Friday, October 29, 2021 6:04 PM
Ann Owen; Ben Teel; Carol Eberhardy; Carol Mittag; Christian Himsel; Craig Mueller;
Cynthia Lynch; Dan Vinson; Dolores Skowronek; Don Scholzen; Dyan Barbeau; Elaine
Gustafson; Hannah Schmidt; J Palmer; Jac Sinclair; Jason Palmer; Jena Sales; Jennie
Bartholomew; Jenny Baker; Jenny Pinterics; Jerry Dutscheck; Julie Gates; Kathleen Sielaff;
Kathy Harty; Kathy Malland; Katie Utschig; Larry Duerr; Lori Gleed; Marijo Zielinski; Mark
Schrauth; Maureen Schinner; Michelle Rekowski; Molly Ostendorf; Nancy Siker; Neal
Bogda; Ryan Parker; Sara Shutkin; Sarah Klippel; Sebastian Black; Shannon Stroud;
Stritch Reference; Yang Zhuo; Katherine.Pietrantonio@cuw.edu
Alma/Primo VE - News and Highlights - November 2021

ALMA
Electronic Resource Management: Give Preference to Services with Order Lines
Recently I promoted the option to order the electronic services displayed to your patrons in Primo VE.
Beginning November 7th, you will have the option to always display purchased services first based on the
presence of a PO Line. Even if you do not generally use Alma for acquisitions, you can take advantage of
promoting purchased electronic subscriptions by creating a PO Line selectively. While this option is set at the
institution-level, it will only affect the order of services if PO Lines exist for the collection or individual
subscription. If you are interested in enabling this in your Alma, please submit a support ticket to
support@switchinc.org.
Electronic Resource Management: DOAJ – Not for CDI collection
If you currently use the “DOAJ Directory of Open Access Journals – Not for CDI Discovery” electronic collection
for your library, I suggest you consider switching to the DOAJ Directory of Open Access Journals database
instead.

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Collection

Type

Linking
Method
DOAJ Director of Aggregator Link
Open Access
Package
Resolver
Journals – Not
for CDI
Discovery

Linking
Level
Journal

DOAJ Directory
of Open Access
Journals

Article

Database

Link in
record

Pros






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Cons
Journal Titles
will appear in
the Journals A
to Z in Primo
ACRL/IPED
electronic
inventory
reports will
include these
journals even if
this is the only
collection in
which they are
found
Links will
resolve directly
to the article



Link resolver
for articles
typically
resolve to the
Journal title,
not the article
so patron have
to search for
the article
again at the
journal



Journals in
DOAJ will not
appear in the
Journals A to Z
in Primo
(unless there
are other
portfolios for
these journals
in another



aggregator
collection)
ARCL/IPED
electronic
inventory
reports will not
include these
journals (unless
there are other
portfolios for
these journals
in another
aggregator
collection)

PRIMO
Improved Display of Content Notes
In instances managed by SWITCH, I adapted some code from a post on the Primo Email List to improve the
display of content notes. Previously, they looked like this:

Now they are rendered more readable like this:

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However, you may encounter some records whose contents are very detailed and long.

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There is an Idea Exchange proposal to truncate long displays with the option to click to read more for some of
these display fields. This would be a great improvement, but no guarantee that Ex Libris will develop it
anytime soon.
If you feel that the negatives of this expanded format outweigh the benefits, I can easily remove the
customized normalization rule. Just submit a ticket to support@switchinc.org.
Collection Discovery – Display Across Collections
With the November release on November 7, patrons using Collection Discovery in Primo will be able to search
across all collections so they do not need to know which sub-collection a title is in to effectively search in
Collection Discovery. When searching in a lowest-level collection, the user will also have the opportunity to
expand the search across all collections.

One caveat, if you have created multiple levels of collections, the patron may not get a result for a search on a
mid-level collection. For example, in the sandbox, I have a mid-level collection for Award Winning Children’s
books which is just a catch-all for three specific collections for a discrete award (e.g. Newberry, Caldecott,
Printz). At the mid-level, my search did not include any hits:

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But once I clicked on Try searching in all collections, I did get a result.

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Katie Utschig

Consortium Coordinator
SWITCH Library Consortium
3401 South 39th Street
PO Box 343922
Milwaukee, WI 53234-3922
Office# 414-382-6710
Cell# 414-214-0134

7

Katie Utschig
From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:
Attachments:

Katie Utschig
Wednesday, December 1, 2021 8:01 AM
All Switch Librarians; Katherine Pietrantonio
Alma/Primo VE - News and Highlights - December 2021
LibreBarcode39Text-Regular.ttf

ALMA
Holdings Search
The Alma repository search now includes a physical holdings basic search scope with a compact result display
that allows you to view content and inventory without leaving the results screen. For example, if you searched
for Physical Holdings with a textual holdings statement that includes the word MICROFICHE, the result list is
fairly compact with the option to view the record without changing screens.

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For holdings with items, it is also very easy to view the items (and add/withdraw items) without leaving the
search results screen.

Pick Slip Improvement
SWITCH-managed instances can now print a scanner-ready request id on pick-slips that does not take up too
much valuable real-estate.

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This is extremely helpful if you use Fulfillment>>Deliver Digital Documents to manage article requests.
To enable your printer to print the barcode font, please follow these easy steps:
1. Download the attached True Type Font (LibreBarcode39Text-Regular.ttf)
2. Click on the downloaded file and select Install (this should install it in your available fonts). You may
need admin rights – although I hope not.

3. Go to your Windows Printer Manager and select the printer that you use for Pick Slips and click
Manage

3

4. Select Printing Preferences

5. Go to Advanced Tab and change the TrueType Font setting to Download as Softfont and Apply

4

6. Then Click OK
Now when you print the pick slips, both the Request ID and the Request ID barcode should print on the slip. If
you have not enabled the barcode font, the request id will display twice. If you prefer not to display the
Request ID barcode, please submit a ticket to support@switchinc.org. I can modify the customization notice to
not display that field for your circulation desk.
PRIMO
Electronic Journals – Coverage Dates in Brief Display
The November release included a really nice feature that most of you will likely want to deploy – coverage
display for electronic resources. Now if patron’s search for a journal title with coverage dates in its associated
portfolio(s), the coverage statement appears as part of the availability statement.

5

If you combine this feature with Direct Linking, you can even allow the patron to click on the Available Online
from the brief display without entering the full display record. Direct Linking uses the first available service as
the link resolver so I previously resisted applying this setting in our discovery views. I was concerned that users
who hit a dead end with a bad link might not realize that other services might be available on the record
because they never clicked through to the full record display. However, CSU has used direct linking for a long
time now, and patrons really appreciate getting to a resource with fewer clicks. The overall ease of use seems
like a fair trade for the occasional hiccup.
If you would like to enable both the electronic coverage display AND/OR Direct Linking for your institution,
please submit a ticket to support@switchinc.org. These settings are at the institution-level so if you are in a
shared instance, SWITCH will need to double-check with your partner library before making either change.
Display Top Level Menu Links with OpenURL searches
Thanks to a recent Primo list email, I learned of a little CSS that enables the top-level links to display if an
OpenURL search does not match on an indexed bibliographic record. For example, if you use Citation Linker
(Fetch, Cite & Go) to search Alma by a citation OR you are linking out from a vendor database because no fulltext is available at the vendor, you may currently end up at a page like this with no top-level links:

6

With this little bit of CSS (compliments of SUNY):
/* Show Main Menu links on Services Page */
prm-topbar .isDeposit, prm-topbar .isServicePage, prm-topbar .isSummonOverAlma {display: inline;}
you can now have a display like this:

If you would like SWITCH to enable this in your Primo view, just submit a ticket to support@switchinc.org.
ANALYTICS
View Selector
I stumbled across View Selector last month and really love it. This feature makes it possible to build reports
that initially take up minimal real estate (ideal for widgets and printing), but allow the end-user to select other
views that provide additional information.
For example, this report has default compact view that works well as an Alma widget
7

while making it very easy to switch to another view with more detail.

This feature can even be used to include a view that displays the filters in use in the report.

8

If you would like to apply View Selector to a new or existing report, simply create multiple views for the
report, but do not add them to the compound view. Then create a new view >> View Selector.

Add a caption for the view selector and determine which views will be available and in what order. You will
see a preview immediately below. The first view is the default:

9

Then you can add the View Selector to the compound layout.

10

End users will now be able to run the report and then quickly switch between views.

Katie Utschig

Consortium Coordinator
SWITCH Library Consortium
3401 South 39th Street
PO Box 343922
Milwaukee, WI 53234-3922
Office# 414-382-6710
Cell# 414-214-0134

11

Katie Utschig
From:
Sent:
To:

Subject:

Katie Utschig
Thursday, January 6, 2022 2:13 PM
Ann Owen; Ben Teel; Carol Eberhardy; Carol Mittag; Christian Himsel; Craig Mueller;
Cynthia Lynch; Dan Vinson; Dolores Skowronek; Don Scholzen; Dyan Barbeau; Elaine
Gustafson; Hannah Schmidt; J Palmer; Jac Sinclair; Jason Palmer; Jena Sales; Jennie
Bartholomew; Jenny Baker; Jenny Pinterics; Jerry Dutscheck; Julie Gates; Katherine
Pietrantonio; Kathleen Sielaff; Kathy Harty; Kathy Malland; Katie Utschig; Larry Duerr;
Lori Gleed; Marijo Zielinski; Mark Schrauth; Maureen Schinner; Michelle Rekowski; Molly
Ostendorf; Nancy Siker; Neal Bogda; Ryan Parker; Sara Shutkin; Sarah Klippel; Sebastian
Black; Shannon Stroud; Stritch Reference; Yang Zhuo; jorangea@mtmary.edu
Alma/Primo VE - News and Highlights - January 2022

Happy New Year!

A warm welcome to Abbie Joranger, Mount Mary’s newest hire. She will be working on serials, electronic
resources, instruction, reference,….
ALMA
Lost in Transit Widget
Circulation Managers, please add the widget for items lost in transit >3 days to your Alma dashboard. It will
alert you to your items that were set in transit to your library’s circulation desk more than 3 days ago. This will
give you the opportunity to track down missing items before they become hopelessly lost. It can also clue you
in to items that may have been managed in the digitization department but were not scanned back in at the
circulation desk before being re-shelved. Remember, these reports reflect data that is up to a day old so
double-check the current status of the item before raising the alarm that it is missing in action. If the last
scanned in is an institution (e.g. MMWLC), you can also check to see which of the partner libraries last scanned
it.
Learning Paths
Ex Libris has developed a series of learning paths that break Alma training into more digestible chunks. If you
are just starting out with Alma, are stepping into a new role in your library, or just feel like some extra training,
you can take a look here:
https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Training/Learning_Paths#:~:text=Learning%20paths%20guide%20
you%20through,see%20the%20available%20learning%20paths.
Lost Resource Sharing Pick Slip after Printing? Print slip from the Lending Queue
If you failed to print the pick slip before scanning in an item requested for resource sharing OR something
happened to the slip after it was printed, have no fear. You can now print a replacement slip from the Lending
queue that has been customized in the instances managed by SWITCH to provide the same basic layout and
information as the pick slip
.

1

You will note that this slip has a return to section (rather than the location information that was needed to
pick from shelf). However, in all important respects, it can now serve in a pinch for transiting the item and
placing it on the hold shelf at the pick-up library.
PRIMO
Quicklinks
Primo can now be configured to display Quicklinks that put your patrons one click closer to the content they
want. For content from a growing list of publishers and aggregators (including Elsevier, ProQuest, Sage,
Springer and Wiley), brief results will display either Get PDF or Read Online (HTML) if the content is available
for your library patrons.

For those who have enabled direct linking, this provides the same one-click access, but it does not rely on the
first electronic resource in the online services list. The criteria used for displaying the link options should
ensure flawless linking.
If you would like to turn this on for your Primo view, you can submit a ticket to support@switchinc.org or
simply go to Discovery>>Display Configuration>>Configure Views. Edit your view and check the box for
Quicklinks in the General Attributes section of the General tab.

2

OTHER
New Resource Sharing Partners – Pilot Project
Three libraries – WLC, AC, and CUW – will be participating in a pilot project this semester to include UWMadison, UW-Eau Claire, and St. Olaf College as Resource Sharing Partners in Alma. Based on an analysis of fall
semester ILL requests placed by Alverno, this project could drop external requesting through Worldshare by
about 1/3. If the project is successful and mutually beneficial, we will seek to roll it out across SWITCH as well
as further grow the pool of Alma partners.

Katie Utschig

Consortium Coordinator
SWITCH Library Consortium
3401 South 39th Street
PO Box 343922
Milwaukee, WI 53234-3922
Office# 414-382-6710
Cell# 414-214-0134

3

Katie Utschig
From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:

Katie Utschig
Thursday, February 3, 2022 8:10 AM
All Switch Librarians
Alma/Primo VE - News and Highlights - February 2022

ALMA

Florida Consortium Alma Wiki

Ben brought another great Alma Wiki to my attention last month. This one hails from a huge consortium in
Florida:
https://falsc.libguides.com/AlmaPrimoGuides
In case you have never wandered through other Alma Wiki’s before, here are several that I have personally
found very useful:
 Harvard: https://wiki.harvard.edu/confluence/display/LibraryStaffDoc/Alma
 CalState: https://calstate.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/ULMS/overview?homepageId=524293
 SUNY: https://slcny.libguides.com/lsptraining/functionalareas
Word to wise: Alma is so highly configurable that other libraries may reference workflows/options that are not
relevant to your library. Always treat these wikis as guideposts – not Gospel.
Customizing your Cancel Request Notice

Did you know that we can customize your cancel request notification reasons and notice content to quickly
and easily cancel patron requests AND provide helpful information?
Instead of the out-of-the-box cancel reasons, we can ask Ex Libris to customize the list for your instance:

1

Then we can customize the Cancel Request notification to supply different “canned” text based on the cancel
reason you select. For example, if Alverno cancels a request using the reason “AC – Textbook Collection,” the
patron receives this notification:

If they select Available Online (Google Scholar) and then paste the URL in the Cancellation Note field, the
patron receives a notification like this:

If you are interested in sending this kind of targeted communication when cancelling requests, submit a ticket
at support@switchinc.org. I would be happy to help you configure Alma to do more of the heavy lifting and
2

streamline your workflow. Precise customization is possible in shared instances so don’t hesitate to submit a
ticket even if you have a partner library.
PRIMO
Dedup troubleshooting - Journals
One of the better features of Primo VE is the ability to Dedup the bibliographic records from your Alma
repository. When Dedup works, the end-user is presented with a single record even though Alma has two
bibliographic records – one describing the electronic manifestation of the work and the other describing the
print manifestation.
So this single record in Alverno’s Primo VE

is actually the result of two bibliographic records in Alma that have been successfully deduped

3

However, often enough you will find records that you would like to see deduped that are not.

When this happens, you will need to do a little investigation to determine if a quick update in your print
bibliographic record will solve the issue.
4

One of the first things to check is whether the print and electronic records reference the other title’s ISBN. If
you look at the Primo full record, you might be able to spot the problem right away. For example, the first
record only displayed a single ISSN.

While the electronic record contained both the eISSN and the related print ISSN

To rectify the problem, locate the print record in the Alma repository and click Edit to open it in the MDEditor.
Then use Search & Browse>>Search Resources to see if the OCLC record has been updated to include the 776
field. If it has, you can simply Copy & Overlay the record if you do not mind replacing the original in full, Copy
and Merge if you have a merge profile set up to retain specific local fields, OR you can copy the content of the
776 field in the newer record and add a 776 field with that content to your original record and then Save the
updated record.

5

Now that the bibliographic record is updated, you can use the Configuration>>Discovery>>Other>>Dedup and
FRBR Test Utility to test if Alma can now match the two bibliographic records. Making sure you have selected
the radio button for Dedup, enter the MMSid from the record you updated and click “Find Matching Records.”

If the match was found, you can then click “Recalculate FRBR and Dedup groups” to bring Primo up to speed.

6

Voila! Primo VE now displays a single record for this journal title. In our Dedup settings, we indicated that we
preferred the Primo VE display the print record,

but it is just as easy to indicate that you prefer that dedupe records display the electronic record.

7

If a missing 776 is not the problem, you will have to go a little deeper in the weeds to see why Alma’s
algorithm is not finding the match you think should be there. If you come across a situation like this, feel free
to submit a ticket to support@switchinc.org so we can determine if there is an easy fix in the bibliographic
records OR if we need to tweak the out-of-the-box algorithm.
Hide bibliographic records from SWITCH schools based on location
Most SWITCH schools allow discovery of all physical inventory from other SWITCH schools in some of their
search scopes whether those schools allow those materials to be requested or not. However, once patron’s
discover the content, the next logical step is to request it. This is fine if another SWITCH school has the
material OR if your library is willing to request it through Interlibrary Loan. However, there may be times when
you would prefer that your patrons not discover the resource at all. For example, MMU’s patrons can discover
materials in Alverno’s textbook collection.

Even though Alverno does not lend these materials outside Alverno, Primo presents the opportunity to
Request from Another Library:

8

If MMU is not inclined to request the title through ILL and just has to cancel these resource sharing requests, it
might be easier to adjust the search profile to exclude titles in that Alverno location from discovery in MMU’s
Primo. MMU could do this by adding a condition to the search profile parameters:

9

Then the title cannot be discovered at all:

This approach does limit discovery so it should only be deployed if patrons are repeatedly requesting
resources from locations at other SWITCH libraries that cannot be fulfilled and you do not want to try to
obtain the titles for your patrons elsewhere.
If you have found yourself repeatedly cancelling requests because the only inventory in SWITCH is not
available for requests, feel free to submit a ticket to support@switchinc.org so we can explore excluding
bibliographic records based on the location of the inventory in a partner’s Alma.
OTHER
10

Call office number
While my cell number can still be used for emergencies or after-hours communication, calls to the office
number are now routed directly through my computer. Feel free to call the office number Monday-Friday
anytime you want to ask a quick question, trouble-shoot a resource sharing problem, or even just say hello. If
the situation is too involved to handle immediately, I can create a ticket and follow-up with you later.
Madison/Eau Claire Resource Sharing Partner Project
In last month’s newsletter, I mentioned that we are going to embark on a pilot project to include UW-Madison
and UW-Eau Claire in our resource sharing partner pool. Under this agreement, there will be no charges
associated with borrowing print or electronic resources and all physical items will be binned first to WLC. WLC
will transfer those items to a special bin that is picked up by the South Central Library Services delivery van
(the Red Van) 3x/week. We are going to just take advantage of the infrastructure we already have in place in
Alma and our delivery network.

Katie Utschig

Consortium Coordinator
SWITCH Library Consortium
Office# 414-382-6710
Cell# 414-214-0134

11

Katie Utschig
From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:

Katie Utschig
Tuesday, March 1, 2022 3:46 PM
Katie Utschig
Alma/Primo VE - News and Highlights - March 2022

To make it a little easier to drill down to topics that might interest you, here are Quicklinks to topics covered in
this month’s newsletter:
ALMA
PRIMO
OTHER
ANALYTICS
Extended Export Option for
Users

Database search in Primo
Journal search in Primo

Using Bins

Engaging student workers
Formative – Assessment
Tool

ALMA
Extended Export Option for Users
From Find and Manage Users, it is now possible to choose an Extended Export option to capture the patron’s
Primary ID in exported spreadsheet. This can be useful if you need to compare your set of users to a set from
your university based on their unique identifier. More useful still would be an export that contains all the
fields associated with a user record, but this is a good start.

PRIMO
Database Search in Primo
Primo has database search capabilities that can promote another level of discovery for your patrons. Here is
an example (albeit from a French Primo) that uses this database feature:
https://renouvaud1.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/dbsearch?vid=41BCULAUSA_LIB:VU2
1

Notice how facets on the left allow patrons to drill down by subject and even secondary subject. These facets
are derived from a local Marc field (69X or 9XX fields added to the bibliographic record for the
collection/database).

Database Search categories can support up to three levels of hierarchy, and, as you can see from the above
example, the same collection/database can participate in multiple facets. Moreover, any collection/database
with $b also participates in $a ($c participates in both $b and $a) so patrons do not have to drill down to the
lowest level to discover the resource.
With the March release, it will also possible to search for databases by subject/category. Libraries without
LibGuides might appreciate this kind of one-stop-shopping within Primo. And even those with LibGuides might
like offering patrons both search options.
Several steps are required to enable database searching in Primo VE, so please submit a ticket at
support@switchinc.org. If both libraries in a shared instance would like to use this feature, we will want to
coordinate our classification scheme and apply it consistently across the instance. However, do not let that
deter you. Whether you share an instance or not, you will want to do the legwork of devising a classification
scheme for the databases before you being adding metadata anyway.
Journal Search in Primo
In a similar, albeit even easier way, Primo’s journal search can be augmented by the Library of Congress
Classification in the 050 field of the bibliographic record. Since Ex Libris has done all the mapping in the
background for us, you simply need to make sure that the “Create Journal Categories File” job is active

2

AND that Display Category Browse box is checked in the Journal Search link in your production view of Primo.
Because the display of categories is view specific, you can easily turn this on in your test view to evaluate this
feature before adding it to your production view. If you want to explore this feature and would like some
assistance in turning it on, please submit a ticket to support@switchinc.org.

ANALYTICS
Using Bins to Group Data
Sometimes we want to group like data in a report based on simple criteria. For example, a report like this
provides great detail

but it is not well-suited to giving us a circulation snapshot. If I want a 10,000 foot view, I might want to look at
circulation counts by Dewey 100s and publication decades. CASE functions are a great way to do this, but it is
very easy to make syntax errors if you create them manually. A simpler option is to create bins. For example, if
3

you create a bin based on the beginning of the Dewey call number, you can easily group you results by Dewey
hundreds.

4

If you wanted to bin by publication date, click on the column setting and select edit formula

And select the bin tab

5

We could define a range of years based on publication date for the last 5 decades and then group anything
before 1980 as a 6th bin

6

7

If you still want the discrete data, you can add an un-binned version of the column in the criteria. However, in
this case, I want to actually exclude everything but the binned columns and the number of loans not in house.
If I edit the table, I can drag columns down to Exclude to remove them from the view

Now we can generate charts that give us a sense not only of what portions of our current titles have gotten
the most circulation but also the relative age of the materials that have circulated.

8

However, if we filter the results to only look at material that has circulated since we migrated to Alma (2019+)

We might start to notice things that spark our curiosity. For example, the graph clearly illustrates that applied
science/technology resources have the most circulation in this library followed by social science and the arts.
In the last 2 years since migration, we can also see that more than half of the material that circulated was
published more than 20 years ago. How might the loan distribution compare to the distribution of titles by
age?

9

If patrons are borrowing science/technology titles from the 1980s and 1990s out of proportion to their
distribution in the collection as a whole, are there topics of research that more recent acquisitions do not
cover? Are they checking out seminal texts that need to be kept in the collection? Or are they gravitating
toward electronic content for the most current information?
If you have data you would like to group together for graphing or filtering, consider using bins.
OTHER
Formative – an assessment tool
Looking for a new way to assess students before, during, or after a library instruction session OR seeking to
deliver asynchronous instruction with opportunities for students to demonstrate what they have learned? One
option to explore is a free version of Formative, an educator tool with a lot of rich features – even in the free
version. You can create assessments with multiple choice responses ideal for immediate feedback or
identifying which areas require additional practice. You can also create assessments designed to give students
practice applying techniques and demonstrate their work through screenshots or longer responses. While
classes can be synched from either Microsoft or Google Classroom, it is also fairly easy to create classes or
provide students a link where they can sign in as a guest.
If you would like to try one out, I added an existing formative to an account I created for testing. Simply click
on the link provided below and enter your first and last name as a guest:
https://app.formative.com/formatives/621e382de0f6cee3fd0a1afd
Over the years, instruction librarians within SWITCH have collaborated on information literacy tutorials. As
technology and library staff have changed, these initiatives have fallen to the wayside. However, if anyone is
interested in joining a working group to explore Formative or discuss other ways we can share best practices,
please let me know via email at katie@switchinc.org. If at least four libraries are interested, I can set up a
meeting to discuss how we might want to proceed.
Alverno Student Worker Engagement
Managing student workers can be a challenge – hiring, training, juggling schedules. You invest a lot in your
students so when you have a good worker, you really hope to retain them. Good work conditions and decent
wages go a long way, but marketable experience can also play a role. Enter Alverno’s new initiative to assign
student workers longer-term projects that align with their interests or professional goals. Jac Sinclair launched
the initiative this semester and worked with each student worker last month to identify suitable projects,
10

including working on LibGuides, setting up book displays, creating a piece of art for the library, and special
tasks in the archives. One student worker I spoke with last month was excited about working with LibGuides
because it would give her something concrete to add to her resume while dovetailing nicely with her studies.
If you have student worker training tips or initiatives you want to share within SWITCH, let me know, and I will
include it in a future monthly newsletter.

Katie Utschig
Consortium Coordinator
SWITCH Library Consortium
3401 South 39th Street
PO Box 343922
Milwaukee, WI 53234-3922
Office# 414-382-6710
Cell# 414-214-0134

11

Katie Utschig
From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:

Katie Utschig
Monday, April 4, 2022 10:57 AM
All Switch Librarians
Alma/Primo VE - News and Highlights - April 2022

Ex Libris is transitioning to a quarterly release schedule so the April release (April 3) is chock-full of exciting
new features. I will focus on a few each month. If you do not have time to read the entire newsletter, feel free
to use the Quicklinks table to jump down to topics that interest you. I have now included a link at the end of
each topic to return to the menu so you will not have to scroll so much.
QUICKLINKS
ALMA
Add Reply to address to
notices
Extend Due Date for
Expired Patrons
Limit Search by Library

PRIMO
ANALYTICS
Database search in Primo

OTHER
Classification/Cataloging Tools

Advanced Search Criteria
Collapsed

ALMA
Configure a Reply To address for patron notifications
This is a great new feature that will allow patrons to reply directly to “circulation” emails. In stand-alone
instances (CUW, CSU), you should configure the reply to email at both the library and institution level to
ensure that the Reply To email address appears in every patron circulation notice. Libraries in shared instances
should add the reply to email at the library level only.
IMPORTANT: While Ex Libris has initiated some measures to promote “library independence” within shared
instances, SWITCH has not enabled any of those features yet because they result in separate notifications
based on owning library – something we have consciously chosen to avoid by using Classic Resource Sharing.
However, you should be aware that some types of notifications are institution-based (borrowing activity,
fines/fees, overdue and lost loan notifications) while others are strictly library based (loan receipts, return
receipts, hold notices). If you add a “Circulation Notification” type email at the library level, your patrons will
see your Reply to Address in library-level notices; “SWITCH Libraries <DONOTREPLY> in institution-level
notices. All notices will continue to include a Contact Us link in the footer, but if you think your patrons will be
confused by your notices behaving in different ways, you do not have to configure a Reply To address.
Below you will find instructions for adding this email address at the institution-level and/or the library-level,
but feel free to submit a ticket through support@switchinc.org if you would like SWITCH to take care of this on
your behalf.
How to configure the “Reply To” email address at the institution level:
1. Configuration>>General>>Libraries>>Add a Library or Edit Library Information

1

2. Under Contact Information Tab, Add an Email OR Edit an existing email

3. Select Circulation Communication (other types may be checked as well) to enable the Reply To email
address. The address does not need to be preferred. Click Save.

4. Click Save
2

(Return to Quicklinks)

How to configure the “Reply To” email address at the library level:
1. Configuration>>General>>Libraries>>Add a Library or Edit Library Information

2. Under libraries tab, edit the library

3. Under the library’s Contact Information tab, add an email or edit an existing email

3

5. Select Circulation Communication (other types may be checked as well) to enable the Reply To email
address. The address does not need to be preferred. Click Save.

4. Click Save

(Return to Quicklinks)

Extend Due Date for Expired Patrons
Many SWITCH libraries rely on externally- or batch-loaded expiration dates to align due dates with the end of
their semester. 95% of the time, that is fantastic, but 5% of the time you have a legitimate reason to extend
the loan beyond the end of the semester. Up until now, the only way to manage this was to edit the user
record, change the expiration date, and then change the due date on the loan.
A new configuration option in Fulfillment>>General>>Other Settings>>extend_due_date_beyond_user_expiry
can now be set with the following values:
 NONE (No change)
4





MANAGER
OPERATOR
ALL

If you make this configuration change, Alma circulation desk workers with the appropriate circulation role, will
be able to extend the due date at the point of the loan and is not available for self-check machines.

Please note that Alma will automatically apply the full term of the loan (typically 28 days), and if you try to
change the due date after extending the due date, you will run into the initial problem of not being able to
extend a loan past the patron expiry date. You will run into this same Catch-22 if the patron comes and asks
for an extension later. You either have to do this old school or use this Circulation Hack:
CIRCULATION HACK (Use with care)
If the TOU have No Reloan Limit,

you can go into the Return Tab on the patron record and return the item and then check it back out
again. This will enable you to click the Extend Loan button and bypass having to edit the patron record.
However, a few SWITCH libraries have Reloan Limits in place in some of their TOU to prevent patrons
from bringing books back only to check them out immediately. If the loan is governed by such a policy,
you will not be able to check it back out to the patron until the Reloan time period has passed.
So this is a mixed bag. You have the ease of extending the loan period, but not the opportunity to set the new
loan date. However, if this still seems preferable to manually updating the user record and manually changing
the due dates on specific loans, please submit a ticket to support@switchinc.org. I can review your terms of
use and clear this change with the partner library if you share an Alma instance.
(Return to Quicklinks)

Limit Search by Library
If you are in a shared instance, you will appreciate a new Library scope feature in Alma. When you do a
physical items search, you will now see a Library Scope at the top of the facet sidebar

5

If you click on this scope, you can set the library (or libraries) that you want included in the scope and click
Apply.

This will automatically filter the results to the selected scope.

6

The power of this scope setting is that it is sticky and will be applied to all future physical item searches unless
you change it.

While even our shared instances typically only have one library, we will start seeing this multi-select style
rolled out to other areas of the Alma interface – most notably Acquisitions.
7

(Return to Quicklinks)

PRIMO
Database Search Now Includes Search by Category
I mentioned some of the features of Database searching in Primo last month. This is a very nice feature –
especially for libraries that do not have LibGuides to provide a handy and searchable A to Z database list for
their patrons. Additional improvements in Database Search now allow keyword searching by category.
I have enabled DB search in this test view: https://switchmmwlc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/dbsearch?vid=01SLCO_MMWLC:WLC_TEST if you would like to
take a look at how it might work.
(Return to Quicklinks)

Advanced Search Criteria Collapsed
You may have already noticed this feature if you have been doing Advanced Searches lately, but this is a good
UX improvement that was rolled out in March. Now if a patron performs and advanced search, the search
criteria collapses so that it takes up less real estate on the page while displaying the search terms used.

Unfortunately, it does not display pre-search limiters, but it is easy enough to click on the icon next to Search
Criteria to reveal the full context of the search.

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I suspect most people will just be happy not to have to scroll so far to see the results of the search.
(Return to Quicklinks)

OTHER
Classification/Cataloging Tools
If you do not have subscription access to WebDewey or Classification Web, you may want to bookmark one or
more of these free online resources to your bag of tricks:
 Library Thing’s Dewey classification: https://www.librarything.com/mds
o Highly visual, readily expandable guide to Dewey class numbers



Library of Congress Classification Outline: https://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/lcco/
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o Detailed outline available in HTML or as a Word document you can download

Once you have click through to a specific schedule, you can use CTRL F to search for specific
words/phrases



Dewey Cutter Program:
https://help.oclc.org/Metadata_Services/WebDewey/Dewey_Cutter_Program/Dewey_Cutter_Progra
m_download
o Free download from OCLC makes it easy to generate a cutter number from either the FourFigure Table or the Sanborn Four-Figure Table

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

Cataloging Calculator
o A multipurpose tool that can be used to generate LC cutters and much more

(Return to Quicklinks)

Katie Utschig

Consortium Coordinator
SWITCH Library Consortium
c/o 3401 South 39th Street
PO Box 343922
Milwaukee, WI 53234-3922
Office# 414-382-6710
Cell# 414-214-0134

11

Katie Utschig
To:
Subject:

Katie Utschig
Alma/Primo VE - News and Highlights - May 2022

I am on vacation until May 9th, so I decided to send out May’s newsletter a little early. Please note that some
features discussed here will not be available until May 1 – if the new release does not break anything .
QUICKLINKS
ALMA
Overlap Analysis
Push Requests to OCLC
Worldshare
EBSCONET PO Line Renewals

PRIMO
Newspaper Search

ANALYTICS
Clean Up
Requested

OTHER
ELUNA 2022

Report a Problem

ALMA
Overlap Analysis
Ex Libris has greatly improved its Overlap Analysis tools allowing you to compare any existing or potential
collection (from the CZ) against a single collection or multiple collections (both currently available for your
library or in the community zone). This is a great way to review current electronic collections as well as assess
the value of purchasing additional electronic collections.
The report provides a snapshot of the total number of portfolios in your source set with some coverage
overlap, complete coverage overlap, no overlap (i.e. unique titles), no coverage overlap in your targeted set(s).
For example, this report analyzes how JSTOR Arts & Sciences I stacks up against all other collections currently
available for Alverno. If you need greater detail, you can download the individual reports by clicking the
“download” icon in each bucket.

To run an analysis, simply go to Resources>>Advanced Tools>>Overlap and Collection Analysis

1

If you do not see this menu option, ask SWITCH or your library’s user administrator to add the Electronic
Inventory Operator to your roles.
(Return to Quicklinks)

Push Requests to OCLC Worldshare
This was reported as an enhancement in the April release notes, but it ran into some hiccups at OCLC. SWITCH
hopes to pilot this process with Alverno next month, but this feature should allow any library to push
borrowing resource sharing requests directly to Worldshare. Librarians will still need to manage requests
within Worldshare, but this will save some effort copying/pasting metadata to create a request manually in
Worldshare. I will reach out to libraries individually once we iron out the wrinkles in this new integration.
(Return to Quicklinks)

EBSCONET PO Line Renewal Integration
With the May release, libraries that purchase journal subscriptions through EBSCONET will have the chance to
set up an ILS integration in EBSCONET will automatically renew and update PO Lines once the EBSCONET
renewals have been submitted. This will save a lot of effort manually updating these recurring PO Lines. If your
library would like to take advantage of this integration, please submit a ticket to support@switchinc.org. If you
would like a preview of what is involved, please watch this short video: https://youtu.be/OUOwCYHFkE0
(Return to Quicklinks)

PRIMO
Newspaper Search
If you would like to provide easy access for your patrons to search for newspaper articles OR you want to
remove newspaper articles from your everything search, you can enable Newspaper Search in Link and include
the option to search on Featured Newspapers to focus the search to newspapers for which you have current
content.

2

If the patron clicks on Newspaper Search, they will get a separate display that consists entirely of results from
newspapers with the same ability to limit the results by facet. Note that this is NOT like applying a resource
type facet to the results that can be removed in the applied facets section of the sidebar. Rather, the patron
would need to click BACK TO LIBRARY SEARCH to exit this targeted search platform.

It is also possible to feature newspapers in a top-level link and even defined featured newspapers.

3

If you would like to set up Newspaper search for your Discovery view, please submit a ticket to
support@switchinc.org and let us know the ISSNs of any newspapers you wish to feature AND if you want to
enable Newspaper search as a top-level link.
(Return to Quicklinks)

Report a Problem
While some libraries have created their own method to allow patrons to report a problem with a link within
Primo, Ex Libris has now developed some nice functionality that you can turn on and use with very little setup.
Configuration>>Discovery>>Other>>Report a Problem Widget Configuration

4

Simply Add Row

Indicate the following:
 Primo View
 Number of categories
 Email Address(es) – separate with ;

5

Patron’s will click this icon

They will select the feedback category

The patron provides additional details and an email address if they want a direct response. Then they click
Send

6

At this point, they can either close this feedback form or submit a new feedback form:

The designated staff recipient(s) get an email with the feedback details, including a persistent URL to the page
from which the patron submitted the feedback.

7

All of the form labels are configurable in Configuration>>Discovery>>Display Configuration>>Labels in the
table labelled “Report a Problem Labels”

(Return to Quicklinks)

ANALYTICS
Clean Up
Over time SWITCH and member librarians have accumulated a large number of reports – many of which may
now be obsolete. I would like to encourage anyone who creates or relies on analytics to take some time to go
through the reports in analytics and add the note DO NOT DELETE with your initials and “today’s date”. If an
entire folder should be preserved, you can indicated DO NOT DELETE at the folder level.

If multiple people use a report, go ahead and add additional initials. That will make it easier next year to
identify reports you flagged as being of interest to you.
8

Reminder that you can get a preview of any report by clicking in the white space in the report list and then
expanding the Preview section

You can also select More>>Properties

You will be able to see the last time it was run – provided you only previewed the report.

NOTE: Many reports will have modified date 11/2/2020 (which may be later than the last date accessed). This
is because Analytics migrated to the new Oracle platform at the end of 2020.
9

If folks could take the time to flag the reports they currently use, I will be able to go through Analytics over the
summer and delete obsolete reports. I will send out a general reminder in June as well.
(Return to Quicklinks)

OTHER
ELUNA 2022 Online & Free!
The Annual Meeting of the Ex Libris Users of North America is once again an online experience with
presentations from Ex Libris personnel. Not all of these sessions will be relevant, but if you would like to learn
more about what is on the horizon, please consider registering for one or more of the sessions listed below:

ELUNA Opening Session, Ex Libris Updates, & Keynote: Todd Carpenter, Executive Director. NISO. May 9, 2022.
1:00pm – 4:00 pm eastern. Register Now!

Updates: Management, Resource Sharing, Discovery, RapidILL, Rapido, and SFX. May 10, 2022. 1:00 pm – 4:00
pm eastern. Register Now!

Updates: Research Excellence, Esploro, and Linked Data. May 11, 2022. 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm eastern. Register
Now!

Updates: DEI, Primo, and Analytics. May 16, 2022. 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm eastern. Register Now!

Updates: Customer Experience, Rosetta, Library Mobile, and Voyager. May 17, 2022. 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm
eastern. Register Now!

Updates: Student Success, Aleph, Rialto, and Leganto May 18, 2022. 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm eastern. Register
Now!

Updates: Data Excellence, Content, Summon/360, and Ex Libris Q&A. May 24, 2022. 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm
eastern. Register Now!

Updates: MetaDoor, Alma, CDL, and ELUNA Closing Session. May 25, 2022. 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm
eastern. Register Now!
(Return to Quicklinks)

Katie Utschig

Consortium Coordinator
SWITCH Library Consortium
c/o 3401 South 39th Street
PO Box 343922
Milwaukee, WI 53234-3922
Office# 414-382-6710
Cell# 414-214-0134

10

Katie Utschig
From:
Sent:
To:

Subject:

QUICKLINKS
ALMA
Form-Based Indication Rules
Goodbye Item Description
Message
Custom In-Process Index

Katie Utschig
Wednesday, June 1, 2022 8:18 AM
Abbie Joranger; Ann Owen; Ben Teel; Carol Eberhardy; Carol Mittag; Christian Himsel;
Craig Mueller; Cynthia Lynch; Dan Vinson; Dolores Skowronek; Don Scholzen; Dyan
Barbeau; Hannah Schmidt; J Palmer; Jac Sinclair; Jason Palmer; Jena Sales; Jennie
Bartholomew; Jenny Baker; Jenny Pinterics; Jerry Dutscheck; Julie Gates; Katherine
Pietrantonio; Kathleen Sielaff; Kathy Harty; Kathy Malland; Katie Utschig; Larry Duerr;
Lori Gleed; Marijo Zielinski; Mark Schrauth; Maureen Schinner; Michelle Rekowski; Molly
Ostendorf; Nancy Siker; Neal Bogda; Ryan Parker; Sara Shutkin; Sarah Klippel; Sebastian
Black; Shannon Stroud; Stritch Reference; Yang Zhuo; Krause, Debra J.
Alma/Primo VE - News and Highlights - June 2022

PRIMO
Report a Problem Widget

ANALYTICS

OTHER
Alverno Food For Fines

ALMA
Form-Based Indication Rules
Indication rules are a great way to filter sets of records based on criteria in the Marc fields that you may not be
able to get at with a repository search. Let’s say, for example, that you came across a record with a subject
tracing with a $$v Juvenile Literature instead of Juvenile literature. You know you could run a job to clean
these records up, but you would like to create a set of the problem records. The repository search ignores
capitalization so you will not be able to find the records with a search, but you can create an indication rule to
find them.
In the past, you would have needed to build the rule with drool syntax

But a new form editor allows you to build rules with relative ease

1

Make sure the access level is Shared.
After you click save, you can begin selecting the fields, indicators, and subfields and the conditions under
which the indication rule will flag the record for meeting the criteria.

2

You can then add or copy a rule to quickly modify similar conditions

Then you can click the operator to change it from And

to Or

You can also create complex groups by clicking this icon and building groups of conditions that can then be
joined by “And” or “Or” operators.
3

Once the indication rule has been created, you can easily run a repository search for Physical titles with
subjects that contain the phrase “juvenile fiction” OR subjects that contain the phrase “juvenile
literature”. You can use Save and Filter Query to create and filter that set of titles.

Instead of saving the set, use Save and Filter

Select the indication rule by which to filter the set. I recommend you change the set name as well so it is
easier to locate it after the filter job has run

4

Confirm that you want to filter the set

After the filtered set has been created, you can either view the members (or if you know from the report
results that the set is small, you can also just push the set to the MD Editor for cataloging.

If you selected Members, it would be immediately apparent why these titles ended up in the filtered set

5

If you wish to batch correct bibliographic records within Alma, you will need to create a normalization rule
that you apply in a job you run in Alma. Normalization rules do not yet have a form editor option (although I
suspect it is on the roadmap) and they are extremely powerful so unless you have mastered using them
already, please touch base with someone at SWITCH before batch updating records with them.
(Return to Quicklinks)

Goodbye Item Description Confirmation Message
For serial librarians that use “duplicate last received issue” to receive new serial items, you will be very glad to
know that this super annoying message is now a thing of the past. As of May, it should only appear if you
updated an ENUM/CHRON field but did not update the description field (either manually or with “generate a
description”).

(Return to Quicklinks)

Custom In-Process Types Now Indexed for Repository Searching
It is possible to create custom in-process types that can be assigned to items to designate that they are in your
inventory but may not be available for circulation. Previously, the custom types were not included in the
repository search options, but now they are under the index “Physical Items: In Process Type”.
6

This should not be confused with system-applied process types that are stored in a separate index.

(Return to Quicklinks)

PRIMO
Report a Problem Widget
You can now enable a widget in all or specific Primo views to report a problem to a specific library email
address. You can enable the widget to provide patron feedback on up to four issue categories. Out of the box
(OTB), patrons can “Report a Broken Link” and “Report a Search Problem”. These labels can be modified along
with two other categories that are not labeled OTB.
When you create the widget, you will indicate which view(s) should display the widget and which email
address should receive responses. The widget appears in the lower right corner of the Primo page on a laptop
or computer (or behind … on a phone). If you have a Chat button installed in that location, you will need to
reposition it so it does not obscure the widget icon.

7

When the patron clicks the icon, they select the category of the problem they wish to report.

The patron can provide details and leave a follow-up email

The patron does not get a copy of the report – although that may be a future enhancement. For now, the
email address assigned to the widget in configuration will get an email that includes the persistent URL to the
8

page the patron was on when they submitted the report as well as the patron’s comments and email if
supplied.

I strongly recommend enabling this feature unless you already have a homegrown Report-a-Problem system in
place. If you would like to set this up for your Primo view, please submit a ticket to support@switchinc.org.
(Return to Quicklinks)

OTHER
Alverno Food For Fines
Alverno has instituted a new policy for overdue fines. Students can now opt to pay for overdue fines (not lost
item replacement fees) with non-perishable food items for the Alverno Food Pantry instead of fines. Each item
= $2.00 waiver in fines.
(Return to Quicklinks)

Katie Utschig

Consortium Coordinator
SWITCH Library Consortium
c/o 3401 South 39th Street
PO Box 343922
Milwaukee, WI 53234-3922
Office# 414-382-6710
Cell# 414-214-0134

9