Reading List Management Best Practice

Overview

This page presents a typical example of managing a reading list as a course reserve operator/manager. In this example, the instructor has created the reading list in Leganto. Other librarians are assumed to be responsible for handling acquisitions of new materials and/or fulfillment tasks such as handling requests (move, booking, general hold, digitization, or other, as required).

Workflow

The following picture illustrates the best practices workflow. For information on the areas of this workflow, see the rest of this document.

Preparation: Set the Submit By Date for a Course

To ensure that instructors complete their reading lists with enough time for you to fulfill the citations on them, set the Submit By date for each course on the Courses page. You can also configure Submit By dates in bulk using the course loader integration profile; see Configuring Course Loading.

The Submit By dates appear to the relevant instructors in Leganto in the list of Upcoming Due Dates.

The instructor creates the reading list in Leganto. To submit the list to the library for processing, the instructor selects My list is ready.

You can see the date that a list was submitted in Alma (see below).

Send Create List Reminder Emails

• Unconditionally — Send the reminder for all courses in the set.
• Exclude courses marked as 'No list expected' — Bulk-exclude emails to instructors whose courses intentionally do not include reading lists.
• If course is not associated with a list — Send the reminder if the course does not have an associated list.
• If associated list has no request for review — Send the reminder if the associated reading list does not have a value in the Request for Review field.  

Monitoring the Task List for Reading Lists that Require Your Attention

On the Alma home page, select the task list icon (or expand the Tasks widget) to see tasks that may be relevant to you. You are looking for tasks of type Reading List, for example, Reading Lists - Unassigned or Reading Lists - Unassigned - Processing.

The tasks are divided into the following types:

Selecting any reading list entry opens the Reading Lists Task List page with filters preset according to the task you selected. You can also open the Reading Lists Task List page (without preset filters) by navigating to Fulfillment > Course Reserves > Reading Lists.

The actions you can do on the Reading Lists Task List page depend on whether you have the Course Reserves Operator or Course Reserves Manager role, but in either case you can select reading lists in the Unassigned and Assigned to Me tabs to work on. If you begin working on a task in the Unassigned tab and save any changes, the task is moved automatically to the Assigned to Me tab, where you will see it the next time you open the task list page.

Use the filters and sorting features to find reading lists that are ready for processing. For example:

When you find the reading list on which you want to work, select Work On in the row actions list. The Edit Reading List page appears.

When you start to work on a list, change the reading list status (any Status) to Being Processed. The list now appears to you when you select the Reading Lists - Assigned to me - Ready for Processing filter and no longer appears to other operators when they select the Unassigned - Processing filter.

Editing Reading Lists

When editing citations, you can select the link following Reading List to access the Edit Reading List page.

Link to Edit Reading List Page

Fulfilling Reading List Citations

Fulfilling a reading list means ensuring that the course's students have access to all of the course materials.

When the instructor submits the list for processing (which changes the reading list's status from Being Prepared to Ready for Processing), the statuses of all citations that were Being Prepared change to Ready for Processing. Citations that are already fulfilled have the status Complete, either because they were automatically marked as Complete (see the note, above) or because you have already marked them as Complete.

Fulfilling Citations

Fulfilling citations depends on numerous factors and may require assistance from other Alma operators at your institution. If required, you can also ask instructor for more information (see Communicating with the Instructor).

Some steps that you may need to perform include:

Fulfilling Physical Citations

For more information see Physical Fulfillment. (3:44 min)

Fulfilling Physical Citations

General Status	General Approach	Steps
The library has enough copies for your students	If required, move the copies to course reserves. Otherwise, no action is required.	Verify the number of items and their locations by viewing the information in the physical holdings of the citation (expand the tab). You can also view item information by selecting the Items citation action. To initiate a move request you must have the Fulfillment Services Operator role or ask another librarian with this role for assistance. Select the checkbox in the citation row and select Place Request in the top actions list. The Create Request page appears. Create a temporary move request as described in Creating a Request. You may want to print out a slip containing location and other information about the resources to be moved: select the resources and select Print Slip in the top actions list.
There are not enough copies for your students.	Search for alternate editions and versions of your citation.	You can use the persistent search box. Alternately, when configured by your library, you can easily locate and provide access to alternate editions of the citation or electronic versions of the citation on the Edit Reading List page: Select Other Formats and Editions in the row actions list for the citation. The Other Formats & Editions page appears. If there are any other results, select Add to List or Add to Citation, as described in Configuring the Display of Other Formats and Editions of Citations.
	Scan a physical copy (digitize) to create digital copies for all students. Your library can set rules to approve digitization requests automatically as well as how to handle copyright approval for these requests.	You must have the Fulfillment Services Operator role or ask another librarian with this role for assistance. Select the checkbox in the citation row and select Place Request in the top actions list. The Create Request page appears (see above). Create a library physical digitization request as described in Creating a Request. Alma notifies you about the progress of your request, and sends you a link to the digitized material when the process is completed successfully.
	Initiate a purchase request for additional physical copies. Your library can set rules to have this happen automatically when a citation is created or edited.	You can initiate a purchase request on the Purchase Request page (Acquisitions > Purchase Requests > Create Purchase Request; see Creating Purchase Requests). When enabled by Ex Libris, a Course Reserves Operator/Manager can initiate the request from the Edit Reading List page (select Purchase Request), in which case the Purchase Request page is prefilled with information from the citation. Alma notifies you about the progress of your request, and sends you a link to the inventory when the process is completed successfully.

Fulfilling Electronic Citations

For more information, see Reviewing Electronic Citations. (4:03 min)

Fulfilling Electronic Citations

General Status	General Approach	Steps
Full text available and licensed	No action required.	For the various options you have to view the citation's resource and to ensure that you have access to the resource, see Viewing information about a citation.
Full text not available	Check the citation's Locate Status. Although the repository locate process is entirely different from the Alma link resolver process, both require the same essential information. If the Locate Status is Incomplete Information, the OpenURL request to the link resolver requires more information. The minimum information for an OpenURL request for electronic resource is a) ISSN, volume, issue, start page, and publication year, or b) DOI.	Select Edit in the row action list for the citation, enter the missing information, and select Save. Alma's link resolver is run automatically, unless you specifically disabled it by selecting Disable Resolving while editing an article citation.
License issues	Initiate a purchase request.	See above for physical citations.
Other	Look for alternate editions and versions.	See above for physical citations.

Fulfilling Other Citations, such as Uploaded Files

Fulfilling Other Citations, such as Uploaded Files

General Status	General Approach	Steps
All	Clear the copyright of the resource.	Your library may configure an automatic approval process, or you may need to perform this manually. For more information, see Managing a Citation's Copyright Status.

Communicating with the Instructor

To mark the notes as read, select Update Notes > Dismiss Notes (and select Save).

To add a comment (for the instructor or another librarian), select Library discussion, add your comment, select Send. The instructor sees the comment on the citation page in Leganto if they select Library discussion.