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Study Group Session 116: General Question and Answer

Study Group Session 116: General Question and Answer

Session Notes

Updates: Alma-D upgrade to Specto Essentials

Stacey Boileau, OCLS

  • e-mail to the Page 1+ Listserv regarding Specto Essentials

  • Alma-D will become Specto Essentials in the coming year at no cost to institutions

  • it’s not a major migration and it will be rolled out over time as a major feature: when it becomes available you can toggle the feature on and will have 6 months to learn about it before it becomes part of the Alma UI

  • encourage everyone to watch the Specto Essentials Webinar

  • the full version of Alma Specto will be available at cost and include additional features, including Alma Preservation

Are there many folks here who have Alma D already? Is everyone using it for reserves?

Sarah Wiebe, George Brown

Dana O’Hagan, Niagara:

  • we do

  • we’re very excited about Specto

  • curious to know when this transition will begin

  • we rely on it very much for course reserves, for keeping content for Niagara college only

Rebecca Pearson, Lambton:

  • Using Alma D, but not for reserves - using it for video collections and archives at Lambton

  • storing the videos in Alma

Travis Winwood, Algonquin:

  • Algonquin is mostly using it as a repository

Erin Williams, Fanshawe:

  • Using Alma D but not for reserves at this point

Andriana Drakos, Mohawk:

  • Mohawk is using Alma D for collections and archives

Has anyone started developing or using the NDE?

Sarah Wiebe, George Brown

Stacey:

  • with the November release it will become available to everyone, have NZ functionality

  • institutions have until January 2028 to transition

  • OCLS is planning to organizing something around the NDE and would like to know what colleges' plans are, whether people would like to go together, what kind of support you need

  • early adopters have warned to not turn on NDE on by accident - hopefully this has changed, but there was a button that anyone could turn on

  • there is also the new Primo Analytics, Mix Panel - this is also a decision that needs to be made by all of us because it's a decision you can’t go back on, whether you’d like to have shared consortial access

  • OCLS would like to have more conversations with colleges in the coming weeks

Sarah:

How many have customizations or configurations for Primo VE?

Stacey Boileau, OCLS

 

  • George Brown, Conestoga, Niagara have customizations

  • Lambton has a few

  • Fanshawe none beyond branding

Stacey:

  • At OCLS we have the CLEAR integration and for those participating, we have something for ACE too

Has anyone started to look at NDE?

Stacey Boileau, OCLS

Sarah:

  • started looking, have a test view

  • also have a test view for Primo Research Assistant - don’t like it

Aimee Jeffrey, Conestoga:

  • I'm following the listserv conversations, but haven't done anything about it.  

Erin:

  • I'd like a timeline to help with planning projects if we're going as a group

Travis:

  • 2026 summer is ideal

 Dana:

  • Definitely

Erin:

  • early summer is better in May. June is busy with grad, then vacations start

Would any of you want to be involved in a working group for NDE?

Stacey Boileau, OCLS

  • Aimee: I'm in 

  • Dana: Yes, I would

Unable to switch between libraries or library and institution in the configuration menu in Alma

Travis Winwood, Algonquin

  • when resetting the hours for libraries, needed to get out of the configuration menu and go back in to have another library selected and the changes reflected

  • saved the changes to the the hours before switching to the other library

  • tried it on Thursday, Friday but have not gone in since to test it

  • has anyone else experienced this?

  • have a ticket open with Ex Libris and a video of the issue

  • will provide an update to the group on the resolution of the ticket

 

  • Conestoga, Niagara, and Mohawk tested and are able to toggle between locations in the configuration menu

Danielle Emon, OCLS:

  • changes to the hours need to be accepted before moving on

Dana:

  • remember experiencing a similar issue a while back, when trying to set up resource sharing

  • the issue at the time might have been caused by not saving the changes before moving on

Aimee:

  • try it on different days, logging in and out

Using Alma D for reserves

Danielle Emon, OCLS

  • What types of resources are put on Alma D - local resources, sharable resources, video?

  • Alma D is a product that is specific to your own IZ - if you have Marc records for resources that are sharable, having those collections managed in Alma as opposed to Alma D might make a a difference when it comes to sharing with other colleges

  • As to the types of resources - my sense was that Alma D was used for archival materials, local projects and I was interested to hear that some were using it for reserves as well

Sarah:

  • personally I would want the records in reserves to be in the IZ because I wouldn’t want to share with other colleges

Dana:

  • We like that we can set Alma D so particular groups can only see particular material through "access rights"

Stacey:

  • OCLS was looking for a solution for Mosby nursing videos and looking at Alma D and found out that the issue is more about access rights, not EZproxy

  • it’s not that OCLS could host the videos in the NZ and make them available

  • even if OCLS puts them in Alma and not Alma D, there is still this question of where they would be hosted/how they would be accessed

Rebecca: Large videos can be a problem

  • Sarah: if those are primarily for only my college folks, I would host in Sharepoint and link to it in the record

  • Rebecca: find permissions more adaptable in Alma-D

  • Sarah: yeah, we had to get a certain area in Sharepoint cleared for extra large files 

Aimee:

  • We use Alma D for a research repository for faculty

  • I explored whether this could be opened up to be discoverable to other institutions but the answer was no at the time, maybe this will change with Specto

Stacey:

  • Ex Libris will be a lot more focused on digital and it shows in the Specto, at cost, product, but generally they are going to be putting a lot more energy into it

  • there will be working group, a listserv, looking to develop it a lot more

Next Session

  • Nov 5, 2025 at 11-11:30 a.m.: November New Releases, Open Q&A

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Recording

 

Transcript