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Alma/Primo VE Documentation: Discovery Access Working Group

Discovery Access Working Group: Mission

The Discovery Access Working Group (DAWG) was formed in February 2020 with goals to:

  • Enhance the discovery and access experience that connects users with library content
  • Integrate features, systems, tools with discovery layer to optimize access to resources
  • Review monthly Alma and Primo VE release notes, sharing a highlights summary
  • Vote in New Enhancements Requests System (NERS) cycles for Alma and Primo

DAWG Members

  • Katie Behrman
  • Neelam Bharti
  • Kim Dolan
  • Jan Hardy
  • Dom Jebbia
  •  Melanie Klaput
  • Amy Perrier
  • Maranda Reilly
  • Barry Schles
  • Jon Singletary
  • Sarah Young

Contact

Have a question or project idea to share with DAWG?
 

Contact us

Release Notes Highlights

See the highlights from monthly Alma/ Primo VE releases

Projects

In Progress

  • Review peer institutions' representation of interlibrary loan in websites/discovery
  • Discuss possible Alma workflow changes that might improve discovery/ access following Ex Libris Optimize training
  • Re-evaluate Order of Online Services and Direct Linking
  • Primo VE - loading external sources, (ArchivesSpace, LUNA, KiltHub)
    • Next steps: review field mapping 

Scheduled

  • Evaluate Primo recent search scopes functionality for signed-in users
  • Explore configuration for recent search suggestions; signed-in users can see the last 100 searches from search history

Completed

  • Enable display of journal coverage dates in Primo VE brief results (documentation), November 2021
  • Hid 'Lost' location facet from Primo VE to lessen confusion, August 2021 
  • Provided feedback on search functionality for Libraries' website redesign, Summer-Fall 2021
  • Re-ordered Primo VE facets based on usage analytics and updated facet labels: 'Tweak your results' to 'Refine your results' and 'Date' to 'Date Range,' July 2021
  • Evaluated Primo VE new pagination so users can specify 10, 25, or 50 results per page, June-July 2021
  • Modified Direct Linking configuration: Disabled Direct Linking when multiple services exist for a resource, April 2021
  • Alma-D + digital viewer exploration and initial implementation, Winter 2020/ Spring 2021
  • Analytics: OBI upgrade to OAS and DV, Nov. 1-8, 2020 (rollout schedule | overview)
  • Primo VE - investigate options for book reviews / book chapters, Fall 2020
  • Updates to labels/language for Physical Copy Requests and Scan Requests, Sept./Oct. 2020
  • Primo VE search profile/scope for Special Collections, Sept. 2020
  • LibKey Discovery implementation in Primo VE & LibKey Nomad promotion, Summer 2020
  • Campus scanning requests, Feb. 2020 - Aug. 2020
  • Primo VE accessibility enhancements, Summer 2020
  • PCI to CDI switchover (required infrastructure change), May - July 2020
  • Primo VE Resource Recommender for Research guides, May 2020
  • Re-evaluate/rank Online Services Order for electronic collections/portfolios, March 2020
  • Add 500 and 506 MARC fields (general notes) for display in Primo VE records, Feb 2020

For reference

Online Services Order of Electronic Collections/Portfolios
*used in conjunction with Direct Linking

Top Services:

  1. AAAS
  2. ACLS Humanities eBooks
  3. ACM Digital Library 
  4. American Chemical Society 
  5. Cambridge University Press
  6. Ebook Central
  7. Emerald
  8. Highwire press
  9. IEEE Xplore
  10. Informs (PubsOnline)
  11. Institute of Physics
  12. Modern Language Association
  13. JSTOR
  14. Nature
  15. Project Euclid
  16. Project Muse
  17. ProQuest (interface)
  18. SAGE
  19. Elsevier ScienceDirect
  20. Elsevier ScienceDirect Autoload (not Elsevier SD Backfiles / Elsevier)
  21. Springer Link
  22. Wiley Online Library

 

Bottom Services:

  1. EBSCOhost
  2. O'Reilly for Higher Education 

 

  • Next steps: 856 URLs for records that also have active electronic portfolios
  • Resource Recommender additions for FAQs, ie. Wall Street Journal
  • Add MARC 655 genre field for search, index, display (K. Heath)
  • Add facets for music instrumentation (K. Heath)
  • Evaluate/enable pre-filter options for Primo simple search
  • Evaluate Primo VE search scopes
  • Collection Discovery possibilities
  • FRBR/Dedup customization
    • Modify FRBR/Dedup keys?
    • Identify preferred record for FRBR/Dedup groups
    • Create suppression rules based on library or resource types