Alma Specto Roadmap – 2026 - Ex Libris Knowledge Center

Overview

Alma Specto is a complementary digital asset management system designed to support librarians and catalogers. It employs AI to streamline metadata management and enrichment for digital collections.

As we work closely with the Alma Specto Early Adopters as well as the Alma Digital Working Group, we will continue to evolve and expand our roadmap planning. While designing enhancements, we intend to deliver more relevant information to the community by sharing prototypes, workflows, and additional details, where possible.

The content on this page is informational and may be subject to change without prior notice at the sole discretion of Clarivate.

Related Information

View our new documentation here.

View our new training videos here.

Highlights by Category

AI Digital Metadata Assistant

AI Entity Extraction and grouping by similarity for images, text and hybrid content
1. Images: faces and objects.
2. Text: people, places and organizations.
3. Support AI entity extraction and enrichment on the sub-collection level
Entity group tagging and title-level tagging
1. Cross-collection AI recommendations for tagging
AI-driven recommendations for Authorities
1. Library of Congress
2. Additional non-LC vocabularies
AI Metadata Enrichment for images, text and hybrid content
1. Cataloging languages: MARC21, Dublin Core, UNIMARC
2. Title-level enrichment based on collection context
3. Support AI entity extraction and enrichment on the sub-collection level
Exhibition Builder
1. Multilingual site support for Exhibition Builder
2. Exhibition map-based template

Discovery

New viewer in NDE full page for digital.
Image similarity carousel in Primo NDE.
Audio and Video support in the viewer.
AI-driven transcriptions for video.

Alma Backoffice

New Specto Menu
Gallery View for digital searches
Side-by-side Metadata Editor with digital viewer
Editing for OCR and ALTO files

Analytics

Digital analytics for backend and Primo NDE
Extended digital analytics

Others

Alma Specto expansion to Archives

Highlights by Timeline

The following table lists the planned developments by timeline. For additional details regarding a development, select its link.

2026 H1	2026 H2	2027 H1
New Specto Menu Gallery View for digital searches Side-by-side Metadata Editor with digital viewer AI entity extraction and tagging for objects in images Title-level enrichment based on collection context AI entity extraction and enrichment for hybrid content Support AI entity extraction and enrichment on sub-collection level Multilingual site support for Exhibition Builder Support of non-English language Authorities in AI enrichment Digital analytics for backend and Primo NDE Image similarity carousel in Primo NDE Preservation add-on	Audio and Video support in viewer AI-driven transcriptions for video Exhibition map-based template Cross collection AI recommendations for tagging UNIMARC support for AI entity extraction and enrichment Alma Specto expansion to Archives Editing for OCR and ALTO files Extended digital analytics	Support IR (Institutional Repositories) Standalone for Alma Specto AI entity extraction & enrichment for video content Support for cold storage

Additional Details

New Specto Menu
What's New?	Highlights	Impact
New Specto menu New Specto Configurations Menu	Consolidated menu containing all Digital Content Management menu entries. Available for both primary menu entries and configuration entries. Digital-only menu entries have been migrated to the new menu (e.g., “Add Digital Representation”). Menu entries that remain relevant for other menus have been duplicated (e.g., “Collection Management”).	Easy access for Digital Catalogers and those focused on digital content management to all relevant menu entries and actions.

Gallery View for Digital Searches
What's New?	Highlights	Impact
Added Gallery View for Digital Title and Digital File searches	Gallery view that displays the digital content in the digital title and file search results. Cards can be enlarged for better previewing using the slider on the top-right corner. Switch to the new view via the top-right action to “switch view”.	Preview mode of digital titles and files that better displays the content within the item.

Side-by-side Metadata Editor With Digital Viewer
What's New?	Highlights	Impact
Cataloging via the Metadata Editor with side-by-side display of the digital content handled	Viewer displaying the digital Representation is available in the Metadata Editor for preview while cataloging.	Easy to track and tag significant objects in images for richer cataloging in bulk.

AI Entity Extraction and Tagging for Objects in Images
What's New?	Highlights	Impact
AI entity extraction of objects in images for convenient bulk tagging and cataloging	Object entities identified via AI and displayed in user-friendly table. Grouped by object type for easy searchability. Simple bulk-action tagging and cataloging.	Easy to track and tag significant objects in images for richer cataloging in bulk.

Title-level Enrichment Based on Collection Context
What's New?	Highlights	Impact
Collection-level description used to improved quality of title enrichment	Given there exists collection-level description, this is used to enhance the title-level metadata enrichment recommendations.	Benefit from the collection-level context to improve the quality of the title-level enrichment within the collection.

AI Entity Extraction and Enrichment for Hybrid Content
What's New?	Highlights	Impact
Expansion for titles containing both image and text to support AI entity extraction and enrichment that addresses the full record content	AI identification of titles that contain both image and text. Entity extraction provided for both image aspects (faces, objects) and text aspects (people, places, organizations). OCR generated. Metadata enrichment taking into account all aspects of the record. Ability to “Reset” the content type if misidentified.	Allows more complex analysis of the titles, providing entities and metadata based on the full record and all its content.

Support AI Entity Extraction and Enrichment on Sub-Collection Level
What's New?	Highlights	Impact
Allow running Alma Specto processes of AI entity extraction and metadata enrichment also on the sub-collection level	Select sub-collection for Alma Specto AI processes.	Enables more granular work on the sub-collection level for

Multilingual Site Support for Exhibition Builder
What's New?	Highlights	Impact
New sites built via the Exhibition Builder can support multiple language translations	Setup is available to add any number of languages for site-wide translation. Titles imported into the Wix CMS via the Exhibition Builder can be translated automatically or manually. Site-level content can be translated automatically or manually.	End-users can switch between the languages selected by the institution.

Support of non-English language Authorities in AI enrichment
What's New?	Highlights	Impact
Expansion of AI-based recommendations for Authorities beyond LC	AI-based recommendations to be provided also from other Authority vocabularies beyond Library of Congress (LC). Available for both the recommended entities and during the metadata enrichment process. Expansion is gradual, including Hebrew, German and French for consideration. Selection of the Authority vocabulary is manual OR based on the cataloged language (TBD).	Quick and easy tagging of entities based on AI-recommended Authorities also for institutions not using LC. AI metadata enrichment to recommend appropriate Authority records as well.

Digital Analytics for Backend and Primo NDE
What's New?	Highlights	Impact
Analytics for Alma Specto digital content and actions	Digital content analytics for Primo NDE. Analytics on new Alma Specto pages and actions.	Introducing new analytics and statistics for Alma Specto in the backend and Primo NDE.

Image Similarity Carousel in Primo NDE
What's New?	Highlights	Impact
Carousel option in Primo NDE for digital content populated based on similar images	Carousel of digital content displaying images that are similar to the current record. Display up to 100 similar items. Using AI and Vector analysis to identify images with similar content.	Quick display of the video/audio content, similar to the existing experience with images and documents. Consistent experience for backend and Primo NDE.

AI-Driven Transcriptions for Video
What's New?	Highlights	Impact
Generation of transcripts from video content using AI tools	Extraction of transcripts from uploaded video (and audio) content. To be used as captions. To be used for AI entity extraction and AI metadata enrichment.	Easy creation of transcripts from video and audio content using AI. Enabling Alma Specto AI entity extraction and enrichment for greater scope of content types.

Exhibition Map-Based Template
What's New?	Highlights	Impact
New template available via Exhibition Builder to create a map-based site	New map template available via the Exhibition Builder.	Creation of an interesting site that is displayed on a map to best highlight the showcased content.

Cross Collection AI Recommendations for Tagging
What's New?	Highlights	Impact
Entity tagging recommendations for groups based on tags in other collections	When catalogers identify and tag an entity or entity group in one collection, if that same entity appears in another collection, they will receive a user-based suggestion for the identified entity.	Benefiting from cataloging activities throughout the institution to create more efficient bulk actions and decision-making.

UNIMARC Support for AI Entity Extraction and Enrichment
What's New?	Highlights	Impact
Extending support for AI entity extraction, recommendations and enrichment to include UNIMARC cataloging	Alma Specto tagging actions generate relevant UNIMARC metadata fields. AI metadata enrichment process to generate UNIMARC records.	Support for institutions using UNIMARC cataloging.

Alma Specto Expansion to Archives
What's New?	Highlights	Impact
Expanding support of content hierarchy and data structures for Archive content	Supporting archival hierarchy, collections and metadata structures via Alma Specto. Applying Alma Specto AI features to archival content.	Support for institutions that have archival content that can benefit from Alma Specto AI features and cataloging.

Editing for OCR and ALTO Files
What's New?	Highlights	Impact
Introducing tool to enable editing of existing OCR/fulltext and ALTO files	New tool to open and edit OCR/fulltext and ALTO files. Direct correlation to displayed full text and content analysis.	Tool to improve and perfect the full text extracted and the corresponding ALTO file, in case errors were introduced, directly in Alma.

Extended Digital Analytics
What's New?	Highlights	Impact
Extended tracking for analytics purposes of additional areas in Alma Specto	Additional tracking. Extended analytics, data and statistics. Both for backend and Primo NDE.	Ability to learn about the usage of Alma Specto throughout the system.