Primo and Alma: implementation, impact, integration and imagination by Fiona Greig, (Plymouth University). Presentation at New Dawn: the Changing Resource Discovery Landscape - JIBS Event and AGM, Monday 25th February 2013 Brunei Gallery at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), London. Find out more about resource discovery at the HELibTech website: http://helibtech.com/Discovery

1. Primo and Alma:
implementation, impact,
integration and imagination
Fiona Greig
Content Development & Support Manager

2. Plymouth University
Vital statistics...
•32,000 students
•Almost 1/3 studying in a partner
institution
•With over 2,500 staff members
•150 years of marine teaching on
campus
•Only “modern” University with a
dedicated medical school
•71% of students go on to
graduate jobs
•88% in further education or
employment
•Largest economic factor in the
City and County
•Single main city campus

3. “LMS” landscape
• Main LMS currently Voyager – Implemented 2004 migrating to
Alma in March (more to follow)
• Resource Discovery Primo – implemented in 2011
• ERM Verde – implemented 2008 (to be replaced by Alma)
• Federated search Metalib – Implemented 2007
• Resource list system Aspire – 1st customer worldwide
• OpenURL Resolver SFX – implemented 2006 (to be replaced by
Alma)
• Institutional repository PEARL – based on DSpace implemented
2005
• Numerous other systems and middleware implemented since 2004

4. Underpinning principles
• Focus on the user experience is critical – even if that breaks
professional “standards”
• Students are time poor. They will use what they find, so we need to
make it easy to find quality materials
• Multiple systems and designs get in the way of really using
materials
• Need to drive down “back-office” costs to reinvest into direct
academic supporting activities
• The ”Library” is critical to the University – but what does “Library”
mean?

5. Implementation (Primo & Alma)
• Run by Ex Libris European Professional Services (Hamburg)
• Exceeding professional project management
• Multi-national and multi-skilled implementation teams
• Continuity of team between two projects
• Very complex systems and need for local understanding of data
and historic decisions
• Ex Libris expect the same level of professionalism in the Libraries
• Really important to undertake testing when asked
• Hosted services, systems sitting in Amsterdam, support in all Ex
Libris main offices provides 24/7 support

6. Impact - Primo
• Immediate acceptance by new students
• Returning staff and students very positive
• Some academics very unhappy – want students to use specific
resources
• Focus on filters and refining hard for some Library staff
• Required some policy and process changes as “search for books”
and “in Library” no longer work as staff expect
• Not all subjects served as well as others in the Primo Central
database
• Reported that Arts and Humanities students felt disadvantaged
• Future of Metalib?????

7. Impact - Alma
Still working through this but ...
• Huge reduction in transactional intervention for areas in
acquisitions, fulfilment (circulation) and “cataloguing”
• Immediate update of all holdings and availability information
• True integration of physical, electronic and digital format
management
• True cloud benefits, access to shared resources and data for
analytics
• And because we have changed policies
– Reduction in complexity of circulation matrix
– Dynamic loan
– Very reduced fines / fees income

8. Impact – suppliers and publishers
• Need to separate their publishing arms from any discovery product
• % of the revenue stream
• Where is the power in the new service approach?
• Increased potential for “delivery on demand” what about the BL?
• How to engage with the less prosperous publishers to get data
• If it is not indexed or exposed – does it exist?
• Role for JISC, JIBS and procurement groups
• Difference between selling data and facilitating access to data?
• Universities need to utilise the discovery tools to expand
knowledge of their in-house created materials

9. Integration (Primo)
• Single sine on using University credentials
• Full OPAC services integration
• Metalib Database access and “embedded” federated search
• Live chat App
• Mobile with Plymouth
• Harvesting from Voyager (soon to be Alma); Metalib and DSpace
• Direct access to SFX “services menu”
• Link to BL request service
• Still provide access to Voyager and Metalib
• Intention is that the user can do everything within Primo, or access
Primo from other service points

10. Integration (Alma)
• Full integration with Primo. Bib harvested daily, holdings and
availability in real-time
• Use of APIs to create and update all user data
• Integration with University Finance System (Agresso)
• Integration with Talis Aspire for holdings
• Mobile with Plymouth pulling Alma data
• No data exchanges between ERM, OpenURL
• Integrated ILL service with the BL
• Use of Oracle to provide very powerful analytics tool
• Intention is that where possible data will flow through Alma to and
from other University and supplier systems without human
intervention

11. Imagination
What will our services look like in 4 years?
• What is the key role for the Library?
• What do our students expect from their University experience?
• What makes the “Library” unique?
• What can we do to work with suppliers?
• How can we diversify our portfolio to react to changes in the
marketplace
• IS there a role for a separate LMS?
• When do Library principles clash with possible future directions?
• Are we just about discovery – and if so can we beat Google?

12. Any thoughts, comments or discussions
fiona.greig@plymouth.ac.uk