Primo VE 2026 Release Notes
Release:
Information provided in the Release Notes is subject to change. Occasionally, features or fixes described here may be postponed or adjusted based on production schedules or quality considerations as part of our commitment to maintaining product quality and stability.
Additional Information:
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Click here to view the monthly release and maintenance schedules.
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To view known issues related to new features and enhancements, see Primo VE 2026 Known Issues.
Announcements
Thumbnail Display for Collections – Change Beginning January 2026
To ensure optimal display, define collection thumbnails explicitly using the Manage Collections tool in Alma (see Managing Collections in the Alma documentation).
These thumbnails appear as background images in the Collections discovery page, as in the following illustration.
Until now, if no specific thumbnail was defined, the following occurred:
- If the collection had sub-collections that had thumbnails, Primo VE displayed an image taken from the thumbnails of a sub-collection in the first level below the collection.
- Otherwise, a default thumbnail image was displayed, as in the illustration below.
Starting January, 2026, collections without a defined thumbnail always appear with the default thumbnail image, as in the illustration below.
We strongly recommend defining thumbnails for every collection.
Features
Improvements to Natural Language Search
January 2026 URM-317408, URM-254501, URM-253493
In the Natural Language Search, we have improved the transformation of the original query into a structured format. Highlights of the improvements include:
- The identification of author names in search queries has been refined to better differentiate authors from subjects. This makes it possible to use them as author filters in query processing, which improves the accuracy of the search results.
Identification of author names in queries relies on the Large Language Model (LLM). While author detection is generally very accurate, detection may not always be successful.
- We added a new mechanism to ensure that terms that are used as filters are not duplicated in the actual Boolean query.
- We enhanced the handling of non-English queries. When a query is identified as being in a language other than English, the resulting Boolean query is generated with three permutations in the (non-English) query language and three permutations in English (because the CDI index is very rich in English content).
- Searches for photos now automatically include the more general resource-type images.
For additional information about Natural Language Search in Primo VE, see Natural Language Search in the NDE UI.
NDE UI - Linked Open Data - Discovery of Organization and Location Entities
January 2026 URM-253782
The NDE UI now supports the linked-data organization and location entities. This feature utilizes Linked Open Data (LOD) to enable users to discover additional information regarding an entity and to relate it to materials provided by your library. Currently supported entity types are person, organization, and location. The information about each entity is obtained from the Library of Congress and Wikidata.
The UI includes the following elements to enable discovery of entities:
- Autocomplete Entity – Suggestions of entities related to terms the user enters into a search query. When the user begins to enter a search term, the system identifies possible matches for the term among entities of each type for which LOD information is available, and ranks the suggestions for each type of entity. The top-ranked suggestions appear at the bottom of the autocomplete list; up to two suggestions may appear. When available, the first suggestion is a person, and the second suggestion is an organization. Locations only appear if neither persons nor organizations are found.
- Info Cards – Brief information about entities related to a record that is open in the Full Display. Info Cards appear on the Full Display page in the Related Entities section of the Recommendations panel. A card showing the same brief description that would appear in an autocomplete suggestion is displayed for each entity that is associated with the record. Selecting the entity's name in a card opens the Entity Page (see below) of that entity.
Up to three entities can appear in the Related Entities section. If more than three entities are associated with the record, a More related entities option appears below the Info Cards. Selecting this option opens the full list of related entities in a sliding panel. Up to 40 entities can be included in the list in the sliding panel. Persons are prioritized for the first suggestion, organizations are prioritized for the second suggestion, and locations are prioritized for the third suggestion.
- Entity Page – More detailed information about an entity presented in a dedicated page. Entity pages open when an entity is selected in either an autocomplete list or an Info Card.
For additional information, see Linked Open Data in the NDE UI.
NDE UI - Related Links
January 2026 URM-216833
Contextual relationships – links to CDI records of resources related to a book – are now included in the Full Display of book records in the NDE UI. Unlike the original UI, the NDE UI includes sections in the Full Display page of a book record for each type of related links available for the book. The following types of related links are supported:
- Chapters of this book
- Reviews of this book
- Other chapters of this book (for book-chapter records)
Links in the general information section of the Full Display indicate how many related links exist. Selecting a link takes the user to the relevant section.
Initially, the first five available related items in the category are listed in the section. Selecting the Show more items link below the list adds the next five available related items, and so on, until all of the items are shown.
From the related-links section, users can select an item to view it. The Full Display of the related item then opens in a new tab.
For additional information, see Configuring Contextual Relationships for Primo VE.
Additional Enhancements
- January 2026 URM-249297
Indexing of 773 $x field – The 773 $x field is now included in the ISSN index. This ensures that ISSNs specified in the 773 $x fields of MARC21 article records can be found via the basic and advanced searches, a change that supports searching within locally cataloged articles. Including this field in the ISSN index requires re-indexing. Since re-indexing is being performed for all customers as part of the January release, it should not be necessary for individual customers to request re-indexing in order for this change to be implemented in their systems if the change is made before the re-indexing. - January 2026 URM-314844
Change in the activation process of the title_equals_exact_phrase_one_subfield CP – We have implemented a change to the activation process for the title_equals_exact_phrase_one_subfield option. This option is an enhancement of the Advanced Search for Titles under the operator equals exact phrase that enables end-users to find local titles if they match either MARC 245 $a$b or 245 $a. From now on, the value of the title_equals_exact_phrase_one_subfield Customer Parameter should first be set to true, and then the database should be re-indexed. For additional information about this option, see Configuring Discovery Views for Primo VE. - January 2026 - Collaborative Networks
URM-229768
Hiding digital resources from local scopes – Member institutions in a consortium can now configure their IZ settings so that the search results of searches in local scopes do not include digital or external resources that are not held locally by the institution. To enable this option, set the exclude_other_shared_digital_in_my_institution_scopes parameter to true (Configuration Menu > Discovery > Other > Customer Settings). For additional information, see Searching in Collaborative Networks. - January 2026 URM-313543
New Provider IDs – Provider IDs for the following providers are now supported: Casalini, WISO, Pubmed Central. For additional information, see OpenURL linking via metadata, DOI and specific provider IDs. - January 2026 URM-315040
CERV Enhancement (ID #6729)
NDE UI - Automatic expansion of search results when no results were found – The option to automatically expand a search when no results are found within the library holdings is now supported in the NDE UI. This means that Primo VE automatically turns on the Expand My Results option under Refine your results, which expands the search results to include CDI records that are not available locally. This functionality is only triggered for searches within scopes that include the complete range of the institution's holdings as well as CDI. To activate this option, in the Customer Settings (Configuration Menu > Discovery > Other > Customer Settings), set the expand_my_results_when_no_results parameter to true. For additional information, see Configuring Discovery Views for Primo VE. - January 2026 URM-245698
NDE UI - Select multiple Views for an Add-on – In the configuration of an add-on (Configuration Menu > Discovery > Other > Add-on Configuration), you can now select multiple Views in which to activate the Add-on. For additional information, see Managing Add-Ons for the NDE UI. - January 2026 URM-317018
NDE-UI Additional metadata fields in resource-sharing requests – We added additional metadata fields to the resource-sharing request form. These fields were included in the form in the original UI, but they were not initially included in the NDE UI. They have now been added to the form in the NDE UI. For information about configuring the resource-sharing request form, see Configuring Request Forms for Primo VE. - January 2026 URM-252476
NDE UI - Sitemap creation – We added support for NDE views to the Publishing Profiles job that publishes sitemap information to Google. URLs for new NDE views are now generated correctly for NDE. - January 2026 URM-241621
NDE UI - Enhanced Digital Versions section – We have enhanced the Digital Versions section of the Full Display page. Under the Digital Version(s) Availability section, additional information about representations is shown, as follows:- Representations that can be opened in the embedded viewer have a Display in Viewer link (unless they are currently displayed in the embedded viewer). Select the link (or the file name) to open the representation in the embedded viewer.
- Representations in formats that are not supported by the embedded viewer are identified by an arrow icon (
). Select the file name to open the representation in an external viewer. - If you are not logged into Primo VE, representations that can only be opened by logged-in users are identified by a lock icon (
) and the label, You do not have permission to view this object.
For additional information about viewing digital resources in the embedded viewer, see Primo NDE Viewer. - January 2026 URM-253074
NDE UI - Customize the loading animation – It is now possible to customize the animation that appears while the NDE UI is loading. This can be done using the customization package. To do so, add the animation you want to use under /assets/images/loadingAnimations/. For additional information about working with the customization package, see NDE UI Customization - Best Practices.