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Page 1+ Alma & Primo Guide

This LibGuide provides material to support college library staff with using Alma & Primo.

E-Resource Basics in Alma

  • The Three Zones [video] - This session will present the three Zones of resources in Alma: The Institution Zone, the Community Zone, and the Network Zone.
  • Electronic Resources in Alma [video] - Terminology and Inventory Model.

  • Activating Electronic Resources [video] - How to activate purchased electronic resources in order to make them available to the public, and show how to test access to activated resources. [video] NOTE: OCLS will activate any collections located in ERMA.

  • Managing Electronic Resources [web page] - How to manage e-resources, which are files that are owned by the institution, such as images, videos, sound recordings, and PDFs.

  • Enabling Platform-level Access for Package Collections

Overview

By system default, package collections are not discoverable in Primo by collection name. For example, a Primo user can find a link to Academic Search Premier by searching for a journal or article in that collection, but not by searching by name, “Academic Search Premier."

This documentation outlines your options for enabling platform level access for package collections in your IZ. You can use these options whether the collection is activated in the NZ or your IZ.

Option 1: Create a Local Database Collection

OCLS has created a template in the Network Zone for database type records: in Alma, navigate to Show MDE > Templates > Shared > OCLS - Template Database.

A local database collection requires a bib record. When doing original cataloguing to create a bib record, refer to the CLO Metadata Standards for database type records.

More information is available in the ExLibris Knowledge Center:

Option 2: Create a Standalone Portfolio

See “Managing Local Portfolios” in the ExLibris Knowledge Center for instructions to create a standalone portfolio. Ignore information there about adding a portfolio to a collection, because in this case you would be creating a standalone portfolio instead of a collection.

Option 3: Configure the Resource Recommender

See Resource Recommender for Primo VE in the ExLibris Knowledge Center for details.

Option 4: Use a Primo VE Import Profile to harvest your LibGuides (Springshare) A-Z Database List

See Adding Springshare Libguide Discovery to Primo VE in the ExLibris Tech Blog.

Shared E-Resource Policies, Standards, and Documentation

Subpages Overview

The following subpages include details on OCLS E-Resource Management services shared by Ontario colleges using Alma and Primo VE.