Best Practices for Contributing Portfolios To Community-Managed Electronic Collections In The Alma Community Zone
Brought to you from the Community Zone Management Group - Written by the Community, for the Community
Ex Libris and the Alma Community welcome customer contributions to Community-Managed Electronic Collections in the Alma Community Zone (CZ). Portfolios in these collections are maintained by the community and do not receive global updates from Ex Libris. When you interact with one of these collections in your IZ, whether by adding, updating, or deleting a portfolio, you may choose to contribute these changes to the CZ. When you contribute to the CZ, your contribution is transmitted to all Alma libraries that have activated that CZ collection.
General Principles
Be sure to contribute new portfolios, updates, and deletions that are correct for all libraries.
Different Community-Managed collections have different scopes. Some contain free resources, while some contain paywalled resources. Some are limited to a specific resource type, such as books or journals. Some are limited to a specific subject area, while others are general. Be sure your usage of and contributions to each Community-Managed Collection align with its scope.
Think carefully about which Community-Managed Collections are best for your library to activate. Some libraries choose to activate many community-managed collections, while others choose to activate a more limited number, while others choose not to activate any.
· For collections labelled “free” or consisting exclusively of free content (Such as Free E-Journals), the way to get the broadest variety of free content and ensure it stays up to date is to activate the entire CZ collection and then configure the Electronic Service so additions and deletions are automatic. That way, all portfolio additions and deletions from other community members will be automatically transmitted to your IZ.
· For collections consisting of paywalled content (such as Miscellaneous E-Journals), you should selectively activate only the titles you can access, and then configure the Electronic Service so additions and deletions are not automatic.
Because community-managed collections are not updated automatically by Ex Libris, you may encounter broken links or outdated coverage information. As a community member using that collection, you are encouraged to correct these errors and contribute your updates to the CZ to make the collection better for all Alma community members!
When you contribute to a Community Managed Collection, any Alma library is free to update the portfolios and data you contributed. You are not personally responsible for updating your contributed portfolios; they are collectively maintained by the community!
Scenarios You May Encounter
Adding A New Portfolio to a To Community-Managed Collection
You are adding a new portfolio to your IZ, and you wonder if it might be appropriate to add it to a Community-Managed Collection so other community members will benefit from access to the resource and be able to contribute updates to it.
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Determine whether there is a Community-Managed Collection that is appropriate in scope for your portfolio. For example, a free e-journal could be added to Free E-Journals, while a paywalled journal could be added to Miscellaneous Ejournals. Check to make sure the resource isn’t already part of that collection.
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Decide whether the resource is stable enough to add to the CZ. Is the URL likely to remain reliable over time? If the resource is a journal, are there stable coverage dates you can add to it that will be correct for all users? Coverage dates are used for link resolver matching, so providing the correct coverage dates for a journal is very important! If the URL or the coverage dates are not stable, it may be best for you to keep the portfolio locally in your IZ and not contribute it to the CZ.
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Determine whether there is an appropriate CZ bib record for the portfolio. If there is an appropriate CZ bib for the portfolio, you should attach your local portfolio to the CZ bib. If there is no appropriate CZ bib record, create your own local bib, being sure to add correct identifiers (such as ISBN or ISSN). You can contribute your local bib to the CZ when you contribute the portfolio. When contributing a new bibliographic record to the CZ, be sure that you have the rights to share that record with Ex Libris and the Alma Community. The simplest way to do this is to make your own record without identifiers for any other bibliographic utility. Please include ISBNs and ISSNs as appropriate because portfolios for the same resource may be added to other CZ collections in the future, and we want them to match on ISSN or ISBN to the good bib record you contributed to the CZ!
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Create your local portfolio, attaching it to the bib record you chose, adding it to the appropriate community-managed collection, and adding your stable URL and coverage dates. Test access to make sure everything is working as expected.
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Contribute the portfolio to the CZ.
Finding A Broken Link In A Portfolio In A Community-Managed Collection
You find that the portfolio parser parameters for a portfolio in a Community-Managed Collection direct to the wrong website, and you wonder what you should do:
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The best solution is to find and contribute a working URL for the resource. Search the web to see if the resource has moved to a new URL. If the portfolio is a Community-Managed Collection labelled “free,” make sure the new URL points to a free site that is available to all without restrictions. Check the coverage dates on the new site; they may be different than the old site. Update the portfolio with the new URL and coverage dates as necessary. Test access to make sure your updates are correct. Then, contribute the portfolio to the CZ so all libraries will receive the corrected URL and coverage dates.
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If you cannot find a working URL for the resource, try to determine whether the resource is temporarily unavailable. If a resource is only temporarily unavailable, don’t delete it from the Community-Managed collection in the CZ. Instead, make a plan to check back at the time access should be restored to confirm it is available again.
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If you can find the resource’s publisher contact information, you can contact the publisher to ask if the resource is temporarily unavailable.
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You can use the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine to see when the resource was last available. On the Wayback Machine’s archived version of the site, you may be able to see useful information (such as a notice the journal is moving or being discontinued) or publisher contact information. However, the Wayback Machine URL itself is likely not an acceptable working URL for the resource, as often, the Wayback Machine will archive a journal homepage, but the subpages, including the various issues and full-text articles, may not be archived.
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If you conclude the resource is not available on the internet anymore and access will never be restored (or that the resource has permanently moved out of scope of its Community-Managed Collection—for example, a journal in Free E-Journals becomes paywalled and is no longer available anywhere for free), delete the portfolio from the CZ collection, and, in the Delete confirmation box, for “Delete Portfolio from the Community Zone as well (Contributing portfolio deletion will not delete the Bibliographic record from the Community Zone),” select “Yes.” This will delete the portfolio from the CZ collection for all Alma libraries, so be very careful to only select “Yes” if you are certain the resource is truly gone from the web!
Finding a Portfolio in a Community-Managed Collection That Does Not Seem Useful To Your Library
You find a resource in a Community-Managed Collection that does not seem useful to your library, and you wonder whether to take any deletion actions.
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Ask yourself, is that resource out of scope just for your library or for all libraries? If this resource doesn’t meet your library’s needs, but it might be useful for some other libraries using that CZ collection, do not delete it from the CZ collection. If you do not want it to appear in your IZ, you may delete it from your IZ only. When you delete the portfolio, in the Delete confirmation box, for “Delete Portfolio from the Community Zone as well (Contributing portfolio deletion will not delete the Bibliographic record from the Community Zone),” select “No.” This will delete the portfolio from your IZ only, and it will remain in the CZ collection for all other Alma libraries.
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Example: You work at an engineering library. Some of the journals in the Free E-Journals collection are in other subject areas and are not relevant to your users, but you do not delete them from the CZ because other libraries may find them useful.
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Because Community-Managed Collections are often very large, deleting unwanted portfolios one by one from your IZ may not be an efficient use of time. If a large number of portfolios in a Community-Managed Collection are not useful to you, your best course of action is probably to remove that Community-Managed Collection from your IZ.
2. If you find the resource is out of scope for all libraries using the Community-Managed Collection, delete the portfolio from both your IZ and the CZ collection. In the Delete confirmation box, for “Delete Portfolio from the Community Zone as well (Contributing portfolio deletion will not delete the Bibliographic record from the Community Zone),” select “Yes.” This will delete the portfolio from the CZ collection for all Alma libraries, so be very careful to only select “Yes” if you are certain the resource is truly incorrect for all libraries!
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Example: In the Miscellaneous Free eBooks collection, you find a portfolio that links to a paywalled site. After investigating, you conclude that this resource not available for free anywhere on the web; it is only available for purchase. You delete this portfolio from the Miscellaneous Free eBooks collection because it is out of scope for everyone using that CZ collection.
Finding a Portfolio in a Community-Managed Collection Is Attached to an Incorrect Bibliographic Record
Sometimes, you may find a portfolio in a CZ-Managed Collection is attached to an incorrect CZ bibliographic record. Community members cannot move portfolios between bib records, so you should request this correction from Ex Libris:
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Double-check ISBNs and ISSNs to make sure the portfolio is truly attached to the wrong record.
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File an Ex Libris Support ticket to request that the portfolio be moved to an appropriate CZ bibliographic record. If you can find the MMS ID of the appropriate bib record in the CZ, provide that MMS ID to Ex Libris Support.
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Ex Libris Support will move the portfolio to the correct CZ record and will let you know when you can see the change in Alma. Double-check to make sure the portfolio has moved as expected.
- Article last edited: 07-Jan-2024