Overview
Ex Libris Rialto is a one-stop vendor-neutral marketplace for academic content from a variety of publishers, aggregators and platforms. Built on the Ex Libris Higher-Ed cloud platform, Rialto creates a seamless, unified, and end-to-end library workflow from requests and searches to selection, acquisition, and discovery. As a single destination for all content types and multiple vendors, Rialto eliminates the duplicated efforts inherent in searching across a variety of online systems.
By using Rialto, the library enjoys the benefits of selection recommendations ranked by relevance and librarian-determined filters, as well as participating peer-institution benchmarks. Since analytics are embedded in the workflow, a title search provides current holdings and use information. Machine-learning and librarian-set preferences rank titles in Recommendation Feeds to surface higher-value recommendations first, for quick review by selectors and for best-fit titles to automatically be placed into DDA and other scheduled purchases.
The Rialto environment improves the library staff’s productivity with real-time integration of resource availability, funds and budget information, and the library data related to resource usage. Because Rialto is fully embedded in the Ex Libris Higher-Ed cloud platform, all the librarians involved in collection development and acquisition work in a single system. Rialto makes it easier for staff to work remotely without the need of paperwork and manual steps, and improves coordination between teams by eliminating extra communication to synchronize work.
Rialto takes a user-centered approach in its interface and workflow design, reducing training time and increasing efficiency of librarians, selectors, and subject specialists. A unified interface for Alma and Rialto streamlines the entire purchasing process, from search and evaluation, to unified ordering and approval, through checkout and order tracking.
For information on how to login, access Rialto in Alma, and navigate the Market menu, watch the Rialto Overview video (3:00 min).
Requirements for Using the Purchasing Component of Rialto
In order to purchase items through Rialto, the institution must have purchased and installed Ex Libris Alma, including the Acquisitions component of Alma. In addition, the institution cannot employ a billing agent or other third party to pay the annual subscription fee for Alma.
Purchasing in Rialto will not be available to Alma accounts when a single installation of Alma is shared across many institutions, and each maintains separate Ebook Accounts per platform (multi-campus).
Until June 30, 2026, purchasing in Rialto will not be available in the following countries: Cambodia, China, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan or Cambodia; Austria, Czech Republic or Germany.
Disclaimer
Clarivate reserves the right to make changes to Rialto and/or its terms of use, at its sole discretion. These terms of use incorporate Clarivate’s privacy policy and cookie policy, as set forth at the following link: https://clarivate.com/privacy-center/notices-policies, as well as the copyright notices and policies posted by Clarivate and its subsidiary ProQuest LLC.
About This Guide
The purpose of this guide is to explain the following:
- How to use Rialto to browse for and purchase titles in the Rialto marketplace.
This guide does not include:
- Initial registration to and configuration of Rialto. This is performed in coordination with Ex Libris. Any configurational changes must be made in consultation with Ex Libris. Examples include changing platform and DDA configuration.
- Anything covered in other documentation guides, such as branding guidelines, detailed information on searching, etc.
Getting Help
Staff users who have chat permissions can chat with our Support team. See more information here.
To begin a chat session, select the Chat icon in your Production environment:
For users who have chat permissions, the Chat icon appears in the persistent menu.
This functionality is disabled by default. Only staff users who have been assigned the Chat with Support role can open a chat session with our Support team. For more details, see Managing User Roles.