1. Colorado School of Mines
Surviving Almanado
Tips for a Successful
Pre-implementation
Laura Guy
Colorado School of Mines

2. What this session is Who we are Scope of project Things you might hear
How is Alma different?
How is this migration different?
What is pre-implementation?
What resources are available?
Things you can do
Data cleanup
What matters?
What we did
What we didn’t
Rules to live by
Meanwhile
Things you can think about, things you can do, to maximize your chance of a successful migration.

3. What this session is not
Not about Change Management
Not about Significant Emotional Events
Not about marketing or P.R.
Not about evaluating services
Not Alma instruction
All these are reasonable things to think about.

4. Who we are Engineering, applied sciences university
CARL  Voyager  Alma
One campus
One library
20 staff
7000 patrons
600,000 Voyager bibs
39 Library “Locations”
Go Live June 4
Undergraduate and graduate programs. Archives, map collection, government publications.

5. Scope of project ILS (Voyager; incl ACQ), SFX migration
Libraries, Locations, Policies configuration
External system integration (SIS/SSO etc.)
Already familiar with Cloud approach
Reserves, ILLiad, RAPID
EDI, Worldcat, Connexion
Primo
It is really important to clearly define the scope of your project ahead of time.
Initially: Print and electronic shared same ILS record.
Like many libraries, we’d fallen down in several areas. We’d gotten very comfortable with Voyager over 15 years.
P2E Job converts holdings from old ILS that looked like print to new E-resource model where they are REAL ELECTRONIC Holdings.
Lots of integration is mandated by the unification of external and internal services (SIS, AD, EDI, OPAC via Primo, etc)

6. Things you might hear “Took me by surprise.” “I didn’t expect this.”
I thought I’d retire, first…”
“Is my job going to change?”
“Will I have a job?”
“What should we do NOW?!?!”

7. How is Alma different? Unification, Simplification, Consolidation
New concepts, terminology, approaches
Exception-based workflows (automation)
Unified metadata & services management
External and internal services
E-resources design from ground up
A uniform and consolidated environment
Alma designed from ground up for eResources
Offers new approaches to fulfillment, resource management, ILL, etc.
It unifies metadata and services management
It manages internal and external services all in one place
It will influence the services you provide
And should help eliminate wasteful or unnecessarily resource-intensive practices – optimization of workflows (exception-based workflows)

8. How is this migration different?
Because Alma is different
Your library is different
Your campus is different
Ex Libris Project Management
P2E conversion
Test migration before final migration
We’d become very un-unified. Lots of disparate products. A very complicated topography. Lots of redundant work. Dark spreadsheets. Duplication of effort. Wasted time. Too many things to juggle.
The Library and the tools we use grew far more complex since our last migration.
The campus is asking for us to prove our relevance and our buy-in to the campus strategic plan.
Our ILS (replacing Voyager)
Our ERM (Goldrush/whatever else)
Our Resources Index (Primo Central)
Our Link Resolver (SFX)
Our Reporting System (Access & Analyzer)
Discovery tool will remain Primo
Reserves will be Alma/Primo
ILL (ILLiad/RAPID?)
Digitool (eventually Alma?)
Anything not mapped as part of the P2E process will go into Alma as print and can't then be changed to electronic. It needs to be deleted and created anew as electronic. It needs to be right.

9. What is pre-implementation?
Depends on your library
“Getting ready”
Organizational setup
Preparation of data
Learning
Grounding of staff
Setting goals and expectations
What is your goal? Most perfect migration ever? Redefined roles and workflows? Just survive? Everyone still talking to each other?

11. What resources are available?
Alma Documentation
Alma-L Listserv
Online Trainings
Limited “live” help from Ex Libris
Your current ILS
This presentation & related materials
Alma documentation is updated monthly. Don’t print it.
Important for pre-implementation:
“Getting Ready for Alma and Primo Implementation”
“Technical Requirements for Alma and Primo Implementation”
“Alma Integrations with External Systems”
“Electronic Resource Handling in Alma Migration”
And don’t forget your current ILS. You may be doing a lot of work – report generation, data cleanup.

12. Getting Ready for Implementation.

13. Getting Ready for Implementation.

14. Things you can do Get your team(s) in place*
Start reading the documentation
Learning Center online trainings
ELUNA/IGELU sites for presentations
Evaluate workflows, practices…
…and core business functions
Get data ready
Set priorities/goals, stay focused
UStat
Get all involved identified and together ASAP. Project Manager, functional experts, data experts, external IT/etc.
Be clear on assigning roles and responsibilities.
*This includes IT/ES.
Remember different people learn in different ways
Figure out project communications.
Discuss potential show-stoppers early on.
Data Cleanup plan
Implement UStat if you have not already.

15. Keep in mind It takes time to understand new concepts
Takes time to adjust to semantics changes
Beware “I did it this way in Voyager”
Adopt a solution-oriented, pragmatic approach
Scrutinize your existing practices and workflows; identify areas to improve
We live in a time where we are all ADHD and expecting instant gratification. Remember this process takes time. Use your pre-implementation period wisely. Things will only get crazier.

16. Data cleanup Keep focused on what is migration related
Consult the Implementation Guide
Use Alma-L
Define your scope: ILS, SFX, PCI, ERM
How’s your patron data?
Got missing/lost/stolen materials?
Find “problem” areas like OTF/etc.
Vendor cleanup
Again, much of this is Library dependent.
This list could be huge. Important things are missing like getting rid of duplicate Bibs, duplicate Barcodes, holdings consolidating, prep for P2E. Use the Getting Ready for Implementation guide as your starting point.

17. What matters? Locations and Location Types
Patron Groups and Group Types
Item/Material Types
P2E Preparation: separate Bibs
Print: Bib/MFHD/Item rec requirement
Policy Simplification
UStat (did I mention that already?)
Surprise! Re-Authorization project
Spend time on these things:
-- Physical and electronic material types (organize electronic records by location or some other uniquely distinguishable manner)
-- Temp versus permanent location data
-- Obsolete libraries, locations, item types and vendors
-- Most importantly focus on e-resources to avoid duplication after migration
We went from five Voyager databases to one.
We went from almost 100 Item Types to 20 (9 of them are Course Reserves)
We went from 70 locations to 39
You’ll need to put your locations into no more than five location “types”
You’ll need to put your patron groups into no more than four patron “categories”
Surprise Authority Work: Getting ready guide mentions local authority records. We just deleted ours prior to migration

18. What we did Reports! Lots of Reports!
Duplicate barcodes/Duplicate OCLC
Bibs with mixed print/electronic holdings
Delete expired patrons/purge old fines
Cleanup reserves
SFX Duplicates
Bad PO cleanup
OTF cleanup
Missing from this was our dealing with multiple Voyager databases. It became very clear that we should only migrate one database, not five!
Delete all the patrons that you can.
Incorrect or duplicate item barcodes
Cleanup, consolidate, rename, and retire locations
Delete local authority records
Cleanup Item Types/Material Types
Make sure Holdings and Item locations sync.
Remove local authority records.

19. What we didn’t Missing item records Enum/Chron Lost Books ACQ
Reserves still a mess
We didn’t ask enough questions
We didn’t realize that for Primo display it is important for print materials to have item records.
We didn’t realize that the use of the bindery module in Voyager could cause display issues in Primo.
We’d fallen down on Lost Books processing.
We didn’t do much in the way of ACQ cleanup.
We did not understand the recommendation in the Implementation Guide to cleanup Enum/Chron

20. Rules to live by KISS Keep Calm And Carry On Beware the weeds
Prioritize (you can’t do it all)
No migration is perfect
No data are perfect
RTFM (& understand what you read)
Be kind and grateful
“Could we go live tomorrow?”
Define your scope and stick with it
Define your goals and stick with them
Try to keep Alma and Primo separate in your thinking.
This is one of the most stressful events you will go through as an organization.

21. Meanwhile Library services continue
People still have other jobs besides Alma
Keep your old ILS going
Other change is inevitably occurring
Life goes on
It is true that managing this is a full-time job.

23. Thank you! http://hdl.handle.net/11124/17090.
On our I.R. you’ll find this presentation plus an associated zip file of “accompanying materials.” These include Access and SQL queries for record cleanup and our pre-implementation data cleanup project spreadsheet.