Alma/Primo VE News and Highlights FYE 2020

Katie Utschig
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Katie Utschig
Thursday, October 31, 2019 12:58 PM
All Switch Librarians
Primo VE Updates

There are some exciting new (or improved) features in the November Primo VE release – as well as some from earlier
releases that you may have slipped your notice. I just wanted to highlight a few of them:
Browse Journal by Subject
 Based on LC Classification (needs a call number in the 050 field) and a job that runs daily, patrons can now use
facets to get a list of journal titles by subject. This brings back one of the features many of us like from Journals A
to Z.
Batch Process Brief Search Results
 Patrons can now select multiple brief records to Pin, Export, Print, or Email
 Patrons can also select all 10 results on the first page (or up to the Top 50 results)
 Patrons can apply a label to the pinned records (e.g. “Merchant of Venice-Criticism) for easy filtering of pinned
records
 Pinned result labels can be easily edited and more than one label can apply to a single record
Short Permalinks
 By default, Primo permalinks will be shorter starting in November. This is a real plus, especially if you arrived at
the Primo search result by linking out from a database. Those open URL strings get very, very long. The short
permalink resolves to the longer link when the patron initiates the search
Boosting Search Results
 In an exciting development from the September release, it is now possible to boost search results based on
location of metadata, resource type, and publication date!
 Primo already has an OTB relevance ranking algorithm, but you can use this to give even greater weight to
certain criteria
o I decided to test manipulating the rankings by giving a boost factor of 10 for videos and boost factor of
.1 for books (basically de-boosting books) and a boost factor of 10 for materials published between
2010-2020. You can see the results here in the sandbox: https://sandbox01na.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=sub,exact,Napoleonic%20Wars,%2018001815,AND&tab=LibraryCatalog&search_scope=MyInstitution&vid=01SLCO_1_INST:01SLCO_1_INST&lan
g=en&mode=advanced&offset=0
 Limitations
o Set at the institution level so you cannot restrict the boost to a particular view or scope within a view.
Libraries in shared instances will want to clear any setting changes with their partner library.
 Best use?
o Some library’s might want to prioritize recent articles over other resources. This would only matter in
everything searches and would force current articles to the top of the results list if they are already
considered relevant. Our current Primo sandbox does not a functioning Everything search – not even
sure if I should register it with PCI or not. However, it is fairly easy to apply and change the boosting so
you could play around with it during the semester break. If you would like any help with this, just shoot
me a support ticket!
Collection Discovery and Digital Representations

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

Collection Discovery in Primo continues to improve, but I am not sure it is ready for prime (or should I call it
Primo) time.
o Benefits
 You can gather mixed content (electronic portfolios, physical books, media files, uploaded
documents) into collections that can be publicized in Primo
 Highly visual
 You can set access rights
 You can organize materials into top-level collections and sub-collections. Titles can be moved
with relative ease between collections and can be added to more than one collection
o Limitations
 Highly visual so you will want to select meaningful images/icons
 Collections are not truly dynamic. Deleted titles will be removed from collections, but titles can
only be manually added to collections. You can create sets in analytics to batch add titles, but
you should weigh this carefully before deciding you want to use them.
 Primo searching within a collection is only so-so and only at the item level. Searching within a
Top-level collection comprised only of sub-collections can only produce results based on the
metadata created for the sub-collection. Search within a Top-Level collection or sub-collection
comprised of items, produces results based on all the searchable metadata in the individual
titles. However, I suspect most end-users would not be able to use this effectively.
 Possible uses?
o Library Research Guide collection with sub-collections to gather and highlight specific resources. I
created a quick mock-up Social Work Research Guide in the Primo Sandbox here: https://sandbox01na.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/collectionDiscovery?vid=01SLCO_1_INST:01SLCO_1_INST&lang=e
n. No denying that these tools are limited, but if you have a good eye for design, this might inspire you
to think of other applications of this feature in Primo.
o Cheap alternative to an institutional repository (MMU Theses?, MIAD’s IHA Competition Database?)
o Digital Representations can be used for electronic course reserves
***Have a project in mind and want some assistance, submit a support ticket!
Purchase Requests
 For those of you that have enabled the purchase request form for patrons in Primo, there is a new Request Note
field that you can enable for that form. This gives requesters an opportunity to make a case for why they are
recommending the material for purchase.
 It is also possible to turn on a blank purchase request form in the top level links.
***If you would like SWITCH to turn on the Requester Note field, submit a support ticket!
***If you would like SWITCH to enable the blank purchase request, submit a support ticket and let me know if you
want it in the top 5 or buried under more options.
Katie Utschig
Consortium Coordinator
SWITCH Library Consortium
3401 South 39th Street
PO Box 343922
Milwaukee, WI 53234-3922
414-382-6710

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Katie Utschig
From:
Sent:
To:
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Katie Utschig
Wednesday, December 4, 2019 12:40 PM
All Switch Librarians
Alma/Primo VE - News and Highlights (December)

In an effort to help us all make the most of Alma/Primo VE, I hope to send out a short missive at the beginning
of each month that highlights important changes and some features of Alma/Primo that you may have missed
your notice.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION
Internal Users who currently Login with a password in Alma
Alma is in the final stages of moving to Ex Libris’ Identity Service to manage authentication for internal users
who currently rely on a password stored in Alma. This is a unique subset of users that may include community
users (who cannot be authenticated via SSO) or staff (who want a secondary access method to Alma/Primo in
the event that single sign-on fails).
NOTE: If you are using email login option for your community users, you do not need to worry about this
transition away from passwords stored in Alma. This is only a concern for users who will try to authenticate
in Alma or Primo with a password previously stored in Alma.
Of this subset, internal users who have already logged into Primo in the past year with their Alma password
will already be registered in IDp (Ex Libris’ Identify Service) and will not be affected by this transition.
However, internal users who were assigned a password in Alma, but never used it in Primo, will likely find that
they cannot login with that password.
To make this transition as smooth as possible, Ex Libris recommends that each instance do the following:
1. Identify internal users who have not been registered in IDp.
2. Consider sending the update/notify users an email with the password reset link (I am more inclined to
send them a link in an email directly from your library)
3. Provide a Forgot my Password link in the login screen to allow internal users to reset (or create) a
password that will be stored and managed by Ex Libris’ Identity Service.

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The URL for the password reset in both the login.link1 AND a letter updating the patrons is configured as
follows:
https://<your Alma domain>/view/resetPw?institutionCode=<inst code>&backUrl=<Primo’s URL>
e.g. for MMU: https://switchmmwlc.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/view/resetPw?institutionCode=01SLCO_MMWLC&backUrl=https://swi
tch-mmwlc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?vid=01SLCO_MMWLC:MMU
To determine if you have patrons who meet this criteria, please run this report in analytics:

Patrons with null in the IDp Service in Use most likely never had a password assigned to their account. Patrons
with “No” in the IDp Service in Use do have a password in Alma, but have not used the password in Primo. This
latter category are the ones most likely to run into a problem after the passwords are removed from Alma
next month.

ALMA
New(er) Features under the Help Icon
The Help icon menu includes a number of features that might be helpful. Access it via the upper right hand
corner of your Alma screen

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Physical Item Sort Routines
While this feature is definitely not new, a question from Ben at Alverno alerted me that most of us are
probably not taking full advantage of the option to create sort routines for working with physical holdings with
a large number of items. Sort routines can be applied to the 1) acquisitions receiving bench and 2) physical
items display in Alma AND 3) Get It display in Primo. This could be especially useful for serials librarians who
want to see items sorted by the most recent issues.
You can create and edit sort routines by going to:
Configuration>>Resources>>General>>Physical Items Sort Routines
Step 1: Create a new sort routine by providing a Name and Description
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Step 2: Identify the order of the sort and select the fields for sorting in the order in which they should be
sorted

Step 3: Determine where the sort routine will apply and whether or not it will be the default.
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IMPORTANT NOTES:
 Sort routines are applied at the institution level so you will may want to test in the sandbox and reach
a consensus before applying in your production environment
 You cannot mix/match ascending and descending sort orders in a single routine (e.g. sort library and
location ascending then sort Chron I descending)
 CHRON J (Month) is only a useful sort field if you have entered numeric values for the months. If you
use prediction patterns, though, Chron J typically does have a numeric value from 1-12
 Any fields not selected for a routine will sort in ascending, alphabetical sort AFTER the sorting columns
have been applied to the items. In the routine depicted above, library is not part of the sort routine. If
this were applied in a instance where two or more libraries have received serial issues with identical
year, enum a, enum b fields, the serial items would appear in pairs in the items list:

If you include library as the first criteria in the sort routine, Saint Francis items will be appear first subsorted by Chron I… followed (possibly pages later) by Sacred Heart items.
If you want to add new physical item sort routines and would like some help, please submit a ticket.
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Improved Filters for Physical Items
As of June 2019, Ex Libris added new filters to the physical items list to allow you to drill down by any/all of the
following: status (item in place/item not in place), library, location, year, volume, description, and receive date
(received/not received). Combined with sort routines, this can make it a lot easier to drill down to the items
you want.

Eventually, this could be a wonderful feature for serials librarians who previously had few good options for
dealing with hundreds of items.
However, there are two factors that currently diminish its utility.
1. There is a known issue that the filters currently only work on the loaded results (which can range from
10-50 depending on the Results per page settings you selected at the bottom right corner of the page).

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2. Only a few libraries submitted a supplemental spreadsheet to Ex Libris during migration that broke out
the Chron and Enum fields for the serial items migrating to Alma. The year and volume filters require
data in the Chron I and Enum fields in the item record to filter so if your migration did not include
those fields, you will not be able to filter by year or volume on historical items.

PRIMO
Direct Linking
Not new, but also probably not fully considered during our implementation, Direct linking allows end-users to
link directly to an electronic resource from the brief results page

rather than selecting from myriad electronic services on the full results page

It is enabled in Configuration>>Fulfillment>>Discovery Interface Logic>>Direct Linking

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and you can set the conditions under which it can occur:

End users will probably love the convenience, but there are some important things to consider before
deploying this feature:
1. Stacey van Groll at the University of Queensland warns that this feature may affect analytics data from
Primo because the user does not need to “click” anything
2. When multiple services are available, Primo uses the first service in the list, so if you enable this
feature when multiple sources exist, you will be effectively choosing the source of the full text based
on the ordering of your electronic services. I wager most patrons would not care – they want quick
access and would probably pick the first service in the list anyway - but it is worth considering all the
ramifications before you make a decision.
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3. Direct linking is set at the institution level so libraries in shared instances would need to agree.
If you think you would like to deploy this, I recommend we do some additional testing during out use of the
premium sandbox before adding it to your production environment. Please submit a support ticket if you are
interested in exploring this option.
Katie Utschig
Consortium Coordinator
SWITCH Library Consortium
3401 South 39th Street
PO Box 343922
Milwaukee, WI 53234-3922
414-382-6710

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Alma/Primo News and Highlights – January 2020
ALMA
Update Library Opening Hours via Excel Import
Working on your Alma calendar for 2020? Consider updating the hours using an Excel import. This brief
video walks you through the process: https://youtu.be/p-35cP9C6io. If you are worried about trying this out
in your production environment, we have premium sandboxes this month. I think this has the potential to
be a real time saver for those who manage the Alma calendar for their institution.
Quick update…Ben Teel just updated Alverno Media Hub’s hours via Excel Import and discovered one very
important detail. When you open the downloaded file from Alma, change the format of the hours columns to
text before you begin editing. Otherwise, Excel will interpret your entries as hours and change the general
format to custom to “be helpful.”

If you don’t do this, Alma will balk at the hours of the uploaded file.

Navigate between tabs and display shortcuts using the alt key
(https://youtu.be/KJyOfX8kcjA)
For those of you who like keyboard shortcuts, you can now easily navigate between tabs and cancel or
save the page using an alt key. Just click the Alt key on any page and you will see numbers associated
with tabs and commands.
If nothing else, you may appreciate even just using Alt-S and Alt-B to save and go back. Give it a try!
Analytics – OCLC field
COMING SOON (January 5), OCLC # will be a discrete field in bibliographic details. Not sure what took
them so long!
If you current have a report that uses a formula to derive the OCLC# and want to just use the new field,
feel free to submit a ticket to support@switchinc.org.

PRIMO
Export to Mendeley
Feature added in August 2019. Mendeley is a citation manager that provides free (and therefore
transportable) accounts with up to 2GB of storage. Primo now includes a link to send the citation to
Mendeley. If you have not promoted citation managers in your library in the past, now might be a great
opportunity to introduce upper level patrons to Mendeley in conjunction with Primo.
Voice Search Assistant
November 2019 – Chrome Desktop, Android browsers, and Samsung browsers now support voice
recognition. It is currently limited to search and operates on the default search scope. However, its real
utility is in conjunction with talk back features. I think SWITCH could benefit from a working group of
librarians interested in exploring and promoting accessibility features. If you would be interested in
participating in such a group, please reply to this email and let me know.

Alma/Primo News and Highlights – February 2020
ALMA
Placing a request within Patron Record
While I was talking with Marijo Zielinski at the SWITCH party in January, she mentioned that she likes
being able to place requests for a patron within Manage Patron Services. Since I really have only placed
requests from Primo or from a repository search, I was thrilled to learn that this was available. If you, like
I, were unaware of this option, here is what you need to know:
From the Patron's manage fulfillment record, click on Submit Request:

Either type a title and let Alma pull up options OR click on the [...] menu button to do an advanced search
on the repository.

Select the type of request you want to place. In this case, I am going to click on Patron Physical

Enter the pick-up location and click Submit

Check Availability and Pricing
This is an interesting feature added back in March 2019 for libraries considering using
ProQuest's free web service OASIS for acquisitions. I know that many of you rely on Amazon or YBP for
your print book purchasing, but now might be a good opportunity to explore the benefits of OASIS
because it is fully integrated with Alma and includes MARC downloads for purchased resources. Resources
can be ordered immediately or packaged after review by the acquisitions manager. This feature also
provides an opportunity to search within the repository and to search resource sharing partners.
CUW explored OASIS a couple years ago and opted against it, but I think Oasis could free up valuable

acquisitions and cataloging staff time. If you would like me to explore if OASIS might be right for your
library, please submit a ticket to support@switchinc.org.
Custom Error Message in Analytics
If you use an analytics widget to alert you to problems with loans, POLs, etc., you may find Analytics OTB
no results message a little off-putting:

You can modify the message that displays when there are no results by editing the Analysis Properties
here:

Under the Results Display Tab, select Display Custom Message from the No Results Settings dropdown
and enter your custom message.

Save the analysis.
Enjoy your new and improved message:

PRIMO
Nothing exciting to report this month.
SWITCH MEMBER SHOUT OUT
While not specifically Alma/Primo news, I thought you might want to check out Mount Mary's new library
home page designed via LibGuide's CMS. Dan Vinson worked with MMU's Digital Marketing Specialist
Kayla White to produce a sleek, compact, user-friendly page. Check it out
here: https://mtmary.libguides.com/home
Have your own great news/ideas to share? Let me know or feel free to send your own email to the All
Librarian’s list.

Katie Utschig
From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:

Katie Utschig
Monday, March 2, 2020 10:32 AM
All Switch Librarians
Alma/Primo VE - News and Highlights (March)

ALMA
Scan In Pop-Up Messages
Alma now allows instances to configure the behavior of Scan In process messages. You can now elect to have
Pop Up Messages, Warning Messages (the kind that slide in from the right), or regular blue status bar
messaging for a variety of Scan In processes. I have taken the liberty of having Holds and Transit Messages
provided a pop-up in all instances save CUW. This dovetails with the interactive tutorials I will be rolling out
later this week after some beta testing at Alverno. Pop Up messages requiring clicking OK to dismiss, but I
believe they will result in better resource management at our circulation desks.
Alma LibGuide
Ex Libris has created a LibGuide for Alma. While I initially questioned the wisdom of providing yet another
venue for product information, I think many librarians will appreciate it’s focus on short videos and super-brief
Knowledge Center articles. I recommend checking it out: https://exlibris.libguides.com/alma/resources
User Records – Last Activity Date
If your library has a fair number of internally-managed patrons (community users, alums that are not managed
by your SIS), you may like a new field available in User Records: Last Activity Date. To enable this, your
System Administrator needs to turn the feature on in Configuration>>User Management>>General>>Record
Last Patron Activity Date.

Once you have enabled this feature, the date of last activity by a patron (loan, request, return) will appear in the
full user record and can be used :

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This field has also been added to analytics, making it a valuable filter for generating purge lists.
Sets – Using one itemized set to create a different itemized set
Have you ever planned to run a job to batch modify a set of records only to realize that you cannot run the job on your
set? For example, you want to run a bibliographic record job but discover you had created a physical item set? You
could, of course, create a new set OR you can create a titles list from an itemized physical items set.

Note: This option only appears in itemized sets. If you are starting from a logical set, you will need to
itemize it first.

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PRIMO
General Digitization!
If your library currently displaying holdings with no items (CSU, CUW, SHSST, SFS, WLC), you will be
thrilled to know that Primo now provides article requesting through general digitization. The holdings location
has to allow digitization for the user group, but if it does, you will now see the option to request digitization.
You can control the label that displays through Discovery>>Display Configuration>>Labels. In the example
below, I changed it to Request Article. I also changed the labelling on the first field in the form (Manual
Description) to something that at least gives the end user an idea of what is required to fulfill the request.

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If you need help optimizing this for your environment or are not sure why this request option is not available in
your Primo, please send me an email at support@switchinc.org.
OTHER NEWS
SWITCH Working Groups
SWITCH has a long tradition of collaboration and professional development centered, in part, on working
groups (cataloging, serials, etc.). While I am not quite ready to formally relaunch these historic groups, I would
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like to take this opportunity to solicit participation in two ad hoc groups that I think could add a lot of value in a
short period of time. I anticipate that groups would meet 1-2 times a month for the next 3 months with defined
tasks between meetings to keep things progressing.
**Discovery Labels/Content
Alma provides extraordinary flexibility in how you configure your Discovery view, but many features (such as
labels) are set at the institution level. I would like to see greater consistency in the labels used across the Primo
views based on best practice and user experience. No single library (or librarian) probably has the bandwidth to
cover every detail of this process so I would like to see a working group of librarians who are willing to break
the problem down, explore possible alternatives, and put some options to the test before recommending best
practice settings and labels. If you enjoy UserX, this would be a great group for you. Please email me, if you
can participate – katie@switchinc.org.
**Notices
While we have made some good strides with our Pick Slips and Cancel Notices, most notices in Alma are fairly
atrocious. The wording is clunky, the display is sub-optimal, and we are probably not taking full advantage of
the customization that could really make our notices sing and zing. If you would love to dig in and work on
making our notices the best they can be, please email me – katie@switchinc.org.
Information Literacy
At the SUNY Virtual Conference I "attended" this month, there was an interesting presentation on providing
Primo instruction to students. Iowa State has a 1 credit, pass/fail, hybrid course on information literacy required
for all undergraduate students. The textbook is available open access through their digital repository. So if you
are looking for ways to boost library instruction or dream of requiring information literacy instruction (either as
a stand-alone course or a component of universally required course), you might find just the inspiration you
need here: https://instr.iastate.libguides.com/Library160.
NOTE: The page scroll/advance in the textbook is in the red bar at the bottom of the page. It took me a while to
figure out how to advance the pages.
Katie Utschig
Consortium Coordinator
SWITCH Library Consortium
3401 South 39th Street
PO Box 343922
Milwaukee, WI 53234-3922
414-382-6710

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Katie Utschig
From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:

Katie Utschig
Thursday, April 2, 2020 11:27 AM
All Switch Librarians
Alma/Primo VE - News and Highlights (April)

ALMA
MMSID included in search results display for more search scopes
If you are as observant as I am, you may not have noticed the addition of MMSID in results for Physical Items,
Electronic Portfolios, etc. But apparently, this is new - so enjoy!

Recent Activity
Something you probably have noticed (and checked out already) is a new icon in the upper right corner of your
Alma page that allows you to see "entities" (bibliographic records, item records, sets, etc.) that you created,
edited, deleted recently. If you just can't remember what records you were working on the last few days, you
might want to exploit this feature:

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PRIMO
Lock selected filters in Primo search
If a patron applies filters to a search and then wants to start a new search with some of those filters locked, they
can simply hover over the facet and click the lock icon to lock the filter for the duration of the session (or until
they hover over it to unlock)

Report a Problem Links
Would you like to incorporate a Report a Problem link on your Primo page? Some Primo libraries use custom js
to get the job done, but there is a low-tech solution built right into Alma - General Electronic Service (GES).
Simply create a form (CMS, Google, LibWizard, etc.) and provide the url in a GES.
You can have it display in either View it/How to Get it OR the Links section of Primo. You can also require a
login before it appears. Click this link to see both options in the generic sandbox.

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If you want to explore deploying a GES like this in your Primo, let me know via support@switchinc.org.
Katie

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Katie Utschig
From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:

Katie Utschig
Friday, May 1, 2020 8:32 PM
All Switch Librarians
Alma/Primo VE - News and Highlights (May)

ALMA
Preview of new MD Editor
Catalogers may want to spend some time this month playing around with the new MD Editor in the sandbox. I
recommend you watch this brief video first: https://youtu.be/LUL_N8FzFIs and then access the sandbox under
the username AlmaUser01 because I have "turned on" the new editor and moved the "Push to MDE" button
to the first quick action menu button under this login.
One feature I like off the bat is the ability to multi-select a group of records to Push to MDE as a batch. This
new approach is vastly superior to the old method of querying the database, saving the query, itemizing the
query, and then cataloging the set (or other methods of creating itemized sets that could be cataloged as a
batch).
When you are ready to play around with it, access the sandbox via this link: Alma Sandbox
Username: AlmaUser01
Password: Squirr3l
NOTE: The new MD Editor will not be the default setting in our production environments until September 6,
2020 so you have plenty of time to get used to it before it becomes the new normal.
Restore Jobs or Deleted Inventory
Neither of these features are new, but you may not have stumbled across them yet so I wanted to point them
out. If you have the role of Repository Manager, you can access two utilities under Resources>>Advanced
Tools that can help you recover from a technical services gaffe.
Restore Jobs allows you to undo the effects of a job and, if desired, even overwrite changes made subsequent
to the job. Up to 5000 records can be restored, including jobs that withdrew items, deleted portfolios, deleted
bibliographic records, changed holdings, etc. Because restore jobs cannot be undone, please review the
documentation provided by Ex Libris and reserve this powerful tool to undo only jobs you ran close to the time
you ran them.
Manage Deleted Repository is less helpful in batch scenarios, but plenty powerful in its own right. With this
tool, you can search for any kind of inventory deleted within a range of dates or by a particular user and then
choose which inventory (items, titles, portfolios, holdings, etc.) you wish to restore from among the search
results. You can find all the details here.
PRIMO
Display Library with Location in Location Facet

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With the new release on May 3, you will now be able to display the library - shelving location in the Primo
Location facet. This is a nice improvement for shared instances that did not include a library code in their
location names.
For example, a search in a MIAD/Alverno Primo currently results in ambiguous locations, but a search in
MMU/WLC does not

To enable this in your Primo view, go to Discovery>>Display Configuration>>Configure Views.

Edit your view and navigate to the Brief Results tab. Edit the location facet.

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Check the box to display library name and click done.

Primo will now display the library name - location name in the facets (example from Sandbox).

If you would like help configuring this for your view after May 3, just submit a ticket to support@switchinc.org.
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PubMed ID Augmentation
Some of you may recall when we enabled CrossRef augmentation for DOIs. This allowed us to gather fuller
citation information if patrons supplied a doi in the Citation Linker or if a link-out from a database included the
doi. Another augmentation integration that we could have set up, but did not, was an integration with
PubMed.
Thanks to Ben Teel, we now have that integration in place in all of the Alma/Primos managed by SWITCH.
Rather than have every school register for an account and get their own API key from NCBI, I just used the API
key that Ben was kind enough to get for Alverno.
If your patrons are currently using Citation Linker/Fetch, PubMed ID is now sufficient to create a complete
citation.

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and pass all that information on to the Resource Sharing form IF you cannot provide full-text access.

Including datafields that are not visible on your form (if you have hidden them).
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OTHER
ProQuest OASIS for real-time acquisitions
Mount Mary's library is in the process of taking the plunge and setting up an intergration with OASIS to
manage purchasing/invoicing. There is no subscription cost for using ProQuest OASIS, but I am curious to see
what kind of mark-up one can expect over a similar purchase through Amazon. Here is a helpful datasheet on
OASIS: https://media2.proquest.com/documents/OASIS+Datasheet.pdf. If you are interested in learning about
the integration and Mount Mary's experience with it, let us know. If multiple libraries are interested, we could
arrange a SWITCH webinar to share MMU's experience with setting up and using this free service.
PUBMED Outside Tool
Big shout-out to Lori Gleed for sharing information about PubMeds Outside Tool. Thanks, Lori!
PubMed has discontinued its Link Out Program and replaced it with something that will probably add a lot of
value for some of our libraries. Similar to "Find Full Text" or link out from EBSCO or ProQuest Databases, you
can register your library for Outside Tool. Once you are registered, PubMed will provide you a PubMed url
specific to your library and any patrons who access PubMed via that targeted url will be able to link out to
your Primo.
The instructions for requesting access are fairly straightforward and open to any library that can verify that
linking out from PubMed will not result in a dead end for patrons. Thanks to PubMed augmentation (see
Primo above), everyone should be good to go.
Full details are available here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK3803/ including the link to request set
up an Outside Tool.
If your library would like to register, I would be happy to help you complete the registration form, but I have
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also created a wiki page with a mock-up of the information you need to provide here:
http://switchlibraries.pbworks.com/w/page/139629675/PubMed%20Outside%20Tools. If you run into snags,
just submit a ticket to support@switchinc.org.
Katie Utschig
Consortium Coordinator
SWITCH Library Consortium
3401 South 39th Street
PO Box 343922
Milwaukee, WI 53234-3922
414-382-6710

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Katie Utschig
From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:

Katie Utschig
Tuesday, June 2, 2020 9:20 AM
All Switch Librarians
Alma/Primo VE - News and Highlights (June)

ALMA
User Notification Letter
For libraries actively managed by SWITCH, your instances have now been configured to enable you to run jobs
to batch send a customized notice to sets of users in your library. Each library has been allotted up to 3
paragraphs for each notification email and no coding is required. You will need the role of General
Administration or Letter Administrator to set up the letter OR you can submit a ticket to
support@swtichinc.org.
You can find out more about the User Notification Letter in the SWITCH Wiki.
Course Reserves - Personal Copies
As of the May release, Alma has the capacity to keep track of instructor personal copies that are put on
reserve. If we configure your instance to allow it, you would be able to indicate that a resource is a personal
copy when you create the Brief Citation in the reading list. The item’s permanent location would be a virtual
location based on the instructor’s name, but you could temporarily assign the item to your library’s reserves
location to allow the item to circulate in accord with the TOU for that fulfillment unit.
Why bother if you can just include a note that it is a personal copy? If you manage a lot of course reserves and
multiple personal copies from a single instructor, the permanent virtual location by instructor name can be a
handy way to group and track the personal copies. It also allows you to give the personal copies back to the
instructor but retain the citation for the next time the instructor wants to put the personal copy back on
reserve in the future.
You can read more about this functionality in the May release notes. Just search for Instructor Personal Copy
Management.
Additional configuration of your instance is required, so feel free to submit a support ticket if you would like us
to enable this feature for your instance.
Opting in and out of notices
Want to permanently opt users in/out of notices individually or in batch? Alma now supports this
configuration.
For an individual user, simply edit the user and click the button Selected Patron Letters. Checked letters have
been “opted in” so uncheck a box to “opt out” of the notice for the individual patron.

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For a set of users, simply create a set of users and run the Update/Notify User Jobs on the set of users. Under
task parameters, select either Opt In or Opt Out to choose the appropriate letter.

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Of course, if you simply do not want a type of notice going out to any patron, it is easiest to just turn off the
notice in Configuration>>General>>Letters>>Letters Configuration. However, there may be circumstances
under which you are fine sending notices to some of your user groups but not others. There may also be
circumstances in which one library in a shared instance would like to send out a notice, but the other library
would rather not. This type of batch opt out job would be an option.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The job runs on an itemized set of users. When qualifying users are added to your library,
the job would need to be run again to ensure that they are also opted out (or opted in).
If you think you would like to explore this for a set of users in your library, please submit a ticket to
support@switchinc.org so that we can determine that best way to meet your needs over the long haul.
PRIMO
Get it and Resource Sharing Request Forms
When a user submits a request via a Request Form in Primo the “Send Request” button is now disabled. This is
a great feature because there can sometimes be a lag in clicking the button and getting the confirmation
message that the request was successfully placed. I believe this will eliminate most instances of duplicate
requests that wreak havoc with Resource Sharing.
Central Discovery Index
Ex Libris will be converting our Primo indexing from Primo Central Index to the Central Discovery Index. I am in
the process of evaluating CDI for each library (reports have been sent to AC, CSU, MIAD, MMU, WLC), but you
may want to take a peek for yourself to see how CDI will affect your end-users in Primo. The easiest way to
test out CDI is to add the string “&searchCDI=true” to the end of a Primo search URL. For example, this search
string looks for “art therapy refugees” in an MMU everything search under the current PCI: https://switch-

mmwlc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,art%20therapy%20refugees&tab=Everything&se
arch_scope=SWITCH_MMU_PCI&vid=01SLCO_MMWLC:MMU&offset=0
Notice that there are 1,618 results and articles that were indexed in multiple collections will appear with multiple
versions exist.

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If we simply add “&searchCDI=true” to the end of the original URL, you will be able to see what results will be
retrieved under that same search in CDI: https://switch-

mmwlc.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/search?query=any,contains,art%20therapy%20refugees&tab=Everything&se
arch_scope=SWITCH_MMU_PCI&vid=01SLCO_MMWLC:MMU&offset=0&searchCDI=true
Notice the dramatic increase in results and the different set of top 10 results. Also notice that the second article that had
multiple versions of metadata, now has a single record of merged metadata.

Feel free to play around with CDI.
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OTHER
Free Conference
The ELUNA California User Group will be offering a virtual conference this summer. Eighteen sessions are on
offer – feel free to register for just one or plan to attend all. Check out the agenda below. If you find anything
of interest, you can register via a Google form:
https://forms.gle/SfxLcE6Kv1ZjjyBL8

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