The suggestions below are excerpts from Getting Ready for Alma and Discovery Implementation, Appendix B - Optional Data Preparations. This appendix can help you decide which clean-up efforts are a priority for your library – not everything will be relevant to all libraries. Examples of other data cleaning could work include:
Library and collection identification tags:
Bibliographic, holdings and item data
Enumeration
Statuses and codes (as discussed under #1 above)
Old/inconsistent data (includes old patron records, fines beyond a certain date and/or less than a certain amount; etc.)
Review of old, unclosed orders
Library and collection names
Patron, vendor, library contact names
E-resource and package resources
Tags and Identifiers:
To allow for clean migration, ensure collections are well identified. Consistent tagging is important for moving records from your source collection to Alma locations. From a consortium perspective, unique identifiers are essential for record matching in the Network Zone (NZ). In order to migrate your data:
It would be most helpful if all items belonging to a particular item group are consistently tagged with the same MARC field/subfield (e.g., subfield tag in 852 or 9XX). For some systems, this may best be accomplished upon export – other systems may need to have edits performed in advance.
Through the migration process, Ex Libris maps these MARC tags to an Alma “location” specific to your Institution Zone (IZ). The migration form used will depend upon your source system. For more information read the https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Implementation_and_Migration/Migration_Guides_and_Tutorials/Generic_Alma_Data_Delivery_and_Migration_Guide OR https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Implementation_and_Migration/Migration_Guides_and_Tutorials/Symphony_to_Alma_Data_Delivery_and_Migration_Guide.
Network Considerations:
Successful bibliographic matching in the Network Zone (NZ) is dependent upon accurate unique identifiers, such as SIRSI 035 | a; OCLC 035 | a, etc.
Extraneous identifiers may interfere with proper matching. Suggestions from Ex Libris are addressed in https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Implementation_and_Migration/Migration_Guides_and_Tutorials/010Alma_Migration_Considerations_for_Consortia#Extraneous_Identifiers_2.
At the local level, Ex Libris recommends: “that the NZ use fields 900-949 and the IZ uses 950-999. This way the local NZ fields (900-949) are those that are local to the entire consortium where every institutional member uses them, and the local IZ fields (950-999) are those that are local only to the single institution. This is recommended because it is important to be able to retrieve groups of records based on data in specific local fields, and having the same local field used for two different data elements may cause problems in retrieval. During migration, if a 900-949 tag has $9 LOCAL subfield, it is removed and the tag is kept in the NZ.” For additional context, visit THE Local Extensions (MARC) https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Implementation_and_Migration/Migration_Guides_and_Tutorials/010Alma_Migration_Considerations_for_Consortia#Local_Extensions_(MARC) section of https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Implementation_and_Migration/Migration_Guides_and_Tutorials/010Alma_Migration_Considerations_for_Consortia.
Network Zone Resources:
https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Product_Documentation/010Alma_Online_Help_(English)/100Managing_Multiple_Institutions_Using_a_Network_Zone/01_Overview/01_Overview_of_Collaborative_Networks for an overview of Network Zone (NZ) functions.
https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Implementation_and_Migration/Migration_Guides_and_Tutorials/010Alma_Migration_Considerations_for_Consortia describes the process for providing and processing records into a shared consortial environment in Alma from various legacy ILS systems.
Videos to provide insight into functions available through the broader Network Zone (NZ): http://exl-edu.com/01_Alma/Alma_Collaborative_Networks_(Alma_Consortia)/Alma_Collaborative_Networks-Introduction/story_html5.html?lms=1 and http://exl-edu.com/01_Alma/Alma_Collaborative_Networks_(Alma_Consortia)/Shared_Bibliographic_Records_in_the_Network_Zone/story_html5.html?lms=1
https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Product_Documentation/010Alma_Online_Help_(English)/100Managing_Multiple_Institutions_Using_a_Network_Zone/Discovery_when_Using_a_Network_Zone provides insight into publishing records to Primo. According to https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Product_Documentation/010Alma_Online_Help_(English)/100Managing_Multiple_Institutions_Using_a_Network_Zone/Discovery_when_Using_a_Network_Zone/010Overview_of_Discovery_when_Using_a_Network_Zone, “availability and delivery for physical resources harvested from Alma are relative to the institution of the view.”
Notes P2E (Physical to Electronic) Processing – for local electronic resources that will not be handled via migration or link resolver form:
Due to Alma’s database structure, local catalogue records for electronic resources are migrated as physical resources, then changed into electronic resources via https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Alma/Implementation_and_Migration/Migration_Guides_and_Tutorials/Physical_to_Electronic_(P2E)_processing. In brief, this involves the following steps:
Ensure the links for locally catalogued eResources in your source system are active.
Consistently identify/tag catalogued eResources in your source database (If not done already). You’ll be mapping these tags to ‘locations’ and identifying these locations as electronic resources on the Alma Location mapping tab. The bibliographic records for these collections will be sent to Ex Libris along with the rest of your collection.
Creation of an input file (csv format) of bib record numbers that correspond to the eResource collections that you are migrating from your source system (e.g., from MARC 001). The migration specialists will match this file to the corresponding recently imported bibliographic records in Alma to create electronic portfolios.
Once migrated, Ex Libris may guide you to run a job in Alma to update your proxy prefix if changes are made to local authentication policies. Running this job in Alma will update user access via Primo.