Consortia

Overview

Alma supports consortia by providing a platform for working together and sharing resources, while allowing members to independently and separately manage their own library needs.

Roadmap

2024 H1	2024 H2
Central Configuration By Central Office Control Imports to Network Zone Display Logic Rules for Shared Electronic Resources Managed in the Network Zone Order of Shared Electronic Resources Managed in the Network Zone	Blocks Across a Network Real-Time Update of Linked Accounts User Groups in a Fulfillment Network

2024 H1

Display Logic Rules for Shared Electronic Services Managed in the Network Zone

What’s New	Highlights	Impact
Members of a consortia will be able to control the appearance of Network Zone shared electronic services in the link resolver using display logic rules	The Institution Zone's display logic rules configuration will include electronic services managed in the Network Zone	Libraries will be able to provide a better service to their patrons by hiding or exposing electronic services when certain conditions are met

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Order of Services for Shared Electronic Services Managed in the Network Zone

What’s New	Highlights	Impact
Central offices that manage shared electronic resources in the Network Zone will be able to determine the preferred order of the shared electronic services in the link resolver of the members' Institution Zone	The institution will have the ability to configure whether it inherits the preferences set at the central office level or not. This configuration option allows the institution to decide whether it adopts the central office preferences or maintains its own independent settings	Consortia will be able to increase exposure of shared electronic services

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Central Configuration by Central Office

What’s New	Highlights	Impact
Today, the central office operator needs to log on to the individual Institution Zone members' environment to configure some of the policies that are determined at a central level. The consortia central office will have more centralized operational policies.	The central office will be able to configure more policies in the Network Zone and apply them to selected members	The central office will be able to work more efficiently, reducing time spent applying central policies

What’s New

Highlights

Impact

Today, the central office operator needs to log on to the individual Institution Zone members' environment to configure some of the policies that are determined at a central level.

The consortia central office will have more centralized operational policies.

The central office will be able to configure more policies in the Network Zone and apply them to selected members

The central office will be able to work more efficiently, reducing time spent applying central policies

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Control Network Zone Imports

What’s New	Highlights	Impact
Today, importing records from a member to the NZ is currently allowed for all consortia members. The consortia central office Admin will be able to control which consortia members can import records to the Network Zone.	The central office will be able to configure which Institution Zone can import bibliographic/authority records to the Network Zone	Enhanced control will be granted to the central office, enabling them to maintain higher quality standards for the central catalog. This increased control will facilitate improved oversight and management, ensuring the catalog meets the desired quality criteria set by the central office.

What’s New

Highlights

Impact

Today, importing records from a member to the NZ is currently allowed for all consortia members. The consortia central office Admin will be able to control which consortia members can import records to the Network Zone.

The central office will be able to configure which Institution Zone can import bibliographic/authority records to the Network Zone

Enhanced control will be granted to the central office, enabling them to maintain higher quality standards for the central catalog. This increased control will facilitate improved oversight and management, ensuring the catalog meets the desired quality criteria set by the central office.

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2024 H2

Blocks Across a Network

What’s New	Highlights	Impact
Fulfillment Network members will be able to share local blocks with the entire network	Blocks will be copied not only from the source institution but also from the target institutions	Libraries will be able to better consolidate their fulfillment services across the network

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Real-Time Update of Linked Accounts

What’s New	Highlights	Impact
Linked account updates will happen in real-time	The refresh of linked accounts across institutions will take place in real-time when the record is updated in the source institution	Libraries will be able to make use of more up-to-date user account information across the network

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User Groups in a Fulfillment Network

What’s New	Highlights	Impact
Institutions will be able to create different locally linked accounts dependent on the patron’s user group in the source institution	Linked account rules will be configurable per the user group value in the source institution This will enable assigning different user groups in the target institution based on the patron's user group in the source institution	Network libraries will gain enhanced configurability in setting network-level fulfillment policies for different user types

What’s New

Highlights

Impact

Institutions will be able to create different locally linked accounts dependent on the patron’s user group in the source institution

Linked account rules will be configurable per the user group value in the source institution
This will enable assigning different user groups in the target institution based on the patron's user group in the source institution

Network libraries will gain enhanced configurability in setting network-level fulfillment policies for different user types

Back to Consortia Roadmap