The URM Vision
Designed not only to improve systems, but to support totally new services and initiatives, Alma and the wider URM Unified Resource Management framework deliver:
- Improved analytics that tie the value of the library and its services more closely to important institutional outcomes,
- Expansion of metadata management and curation beyond traditional content to include research data sets, and
- Support for joint collection development models that allow libraries to truly collaborate and thereby maximize the investment in their collections.
The URM vision includes:
- Unified resource management – Supports the entire suite of library operations for print, electronic, and digital resources.
- Collaborative Metadata Management – Brings high quality, shared metadata into the resource management environment in a unique, hybrid model that balances global sharing with local needs.
- Smart Fulfillment – Provides fulfillment services to users in terms that are easy to understand, while using unified workflows and analytics capabilities to streamline and optimize fulfillment workflows.
- Optimized resources and data – Simplifies library workflows by using a unique automated business processes and shared data.
- Cloud-based service – Increases the return on investment and reduces the total cost of ownership of the library’s infrastructure by providing access to shared data and services.
- Intelligent collection development – Allows you to maximize your collection development budget with selection, acquisitions, and evaluation processes informed by usage information, cost per use, and the holdings of peer collections.
- Ex Libris open platform – Web-based, open interfaces seamlessly integrate to other systems including external campus systems. Libraries can develop adapters and plug-ins to meet their institutions’ unique needs.