Data Excellence (DX) 

Over the past years Ex Libris has continued to recognize the importance, significance and centrality of Content and Data. We have been focusing on Data Excellence (DX) which addresses the intersection between Content, Technology and Users as part of a data-driven cross-company strategy.

Data Excellence (DX) has begun in 2021, and focused on the update frequency, quality and discoverability in the Knowledgebases and Discovery Index.

Quicker Updates: Alma Direct Ingest

One of these initiatives is the focus on Quicker Updates; increasing the frequency of updates to the Alma Community Zone so that changes made by Content Providers can reach institutions faster.

We have transitioned our updates from a weekly Update cycle, and now 95% of our non-static collections are updated daily (pending content providers updates).

To support this goal, we have developed a new “Alma Direct Ingest” tool to ingest updated title lists directly into the Alma Community Zone, utilizing a daily fetch mechanism and a target of 1-day processing from fetch to availability in the Community Zone. The transition to the new tool has been seamless for institutions, and no action is required. Note that the fetch only occurs when an updated file/title list is available, and we continue to rely on the providers to supply these files at their regular pace.

As part of this process, we have investing in an infrastructure upgrade that will provide better technical support both today and in the long term, by implementing a failover server mechanism. This will ensure that there are better backups and updates can run in the background while the Live Community Zone is not affected. The technical implication of this is that individual title/portfolio changes that are contributed by users will be implemented immediately for the user in their local Institution Zone, but will take up to 48 hours to be implemented in the Community Zone (previously this was immediate), followed by the standard Distribution/Harvesting process to reach other institutions’ IZs. For more details, please refer to the below FAQ.

Data Excellence in general and the Alma Direct Ingest tool specifically enables Ex Libris to shift towards more frequent title list updates directly into the Alma Community Zone, thus improving the update turnaround time and accuracy of the represented content. Further, we have added failover capability that will strengthen the infrastructure and foundation of the CZ for the long term. Our goal is to transition all collections that are managed by Ex Libris to be supported by the Alma Direct Ingest in a gradual, seamless process by the end of 2025.

If you have any further questions about this process, please contact the Alma Product Support Teams via the Support Portal.

• Article last edited: 05-JUN-2025