Calling all Alma
Resource Sharing Libraries
This year, in partnership with a group of other institutions
in Wales, we purchased a new LMS product for our library. This meant that we had to switch over from
using our old inter-library loan software to using the ALMA Resource Sharing
(RS) package. At the same time, we were
opening a new campus which meant that a lot of our book stock was on the move
to the new Bay Campus Library. Let’s just say that 2015 brought us a unique set
of challenges.
In early November we decided that it might be a good idea if
staff from three institutions in South Wales who have already “gone live” this
summer, were to share their ALMA experiences with three more institutions that
are scheduled to start using the resource sharing package in early 2016. It
seemed like a good time to reflect on the first few bumpy months of progress
and to work out how we could help those that are yet to start using it. Here at Swansea University we were very
fortunate to have assistance from colleagues at both Manchester University and
Lancaster University with initial workflows, which was an enormous help to us
as we began the switch-over.
We began by running a short informal workshop with the idea
that staff would be able to talk about workflows,
discuss wide-ranging issues with software and configuration and perhaps most
importantly of all, establish a mutual support network.
This brings me neatly to the reason for this blog post; we
want to reach out to the other libraries in the U.K. who have already
established good working practices using ALMA RS. There was an overwhelming
demand from the workshop participants for a very informal mailing list, where
grass-roots ILL practitioners could feel comfortable asking for help or advice and
be able to discuss practical issues with others.
Before any of you shout out that there is already an
Ex-Libris group in existence (EPUG-UKI-ALMA), we felt that theirs was a more
formal and technical group than we were looking for at this stage. Also, perhaps we don’t actually want to share
our thoughts with the product supplier. The new private JISC mailing list will
be restricted to any person working in or supporting inter-library loans /
document supply services.
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Don’t be
shy – there are over 30 U.K. institutions currently or soon to be using
ALMA to deliver inter-library loan services to their staff, students and
other libraries
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If you would like to subscribe to this list you can
access the homepage via:
LIS-ALMA-RESOURCE-SHARING
An informal list for ALMA RS inter-library loan and
document supply practitioners
Caroline Rauter
(c.rauter@swansea.ac.uk)
posted by Sandra DeRoy on Behalf of Caroline
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