Item-Level Badges and Labels

Many recommended items in the list of retention candidates have badges, which are displayed in the Recommendation Insights section.

Badges indicate different factors relevant to the item you are viewing:

• Available Elsewhere – The item is available in one of the selected comparison institutions.
• Available in My Network – The item is available in your institution’s network.
• Available in My Pods – The item is available in one of your institution’s pods.
• Courses – The recommended item appears in at least one reading list associated with Alma or Leganto courses. You control which courses are considered in recommendation calculations from the Courses Recommendation Rules page.
• Duplicate Title Record – The recommended title appears in multiple bibliographic records with a matching title and metadata. We suggest merging such records into a single record. Until that is done, they are treated as one bibliographic record for calculation purposes. After merging,  please allow up to one day before rerunning the project to ensure the system registers the changes.
• Electronic Match Found –The item has at least one non-perpetual electronic match.
• High Usage – The item shows significant demand, which likely makes it a good candidate for retention.
• Insufficient Metadata – The recommendation is based on a record with a Bibliographic Rank below 60, indicating that limited or incomplete bibliographic metadata may affect match accuracy. To learn about Alma's bibliographic ranks, see Bibliographic Ranking in Metadata Editor.
• Multiple Items in List – There are multiple items for the same MMS included in the recommendations list.
• Not in Database – The item does not appear in the open-access database used for comparison.
• Not Retained by Others – Held by other institution(s) within the project’s scope but not committed to retention in any of them.
• Perpetual Electronic Match – The item has at least one electronic match with perpetual access.
• Single Item – This is the only copy of the title that exists within your project’s defined scope (for example, a single copy across your institution or a single copy in a selected library).
• Unique Item – You are the only one among all the selected institutions (i.e., the ones you chose to compare to during project creation) that holds this title.

In addition to badges, you can create custom labels to group, track, or mark items according to your local workflows—for example, tagging items for further review, staff assignment, or specific preservation priorities. To add a label:

1. Select Add Labels.
2. Enter the desired label name and tick the empty square next to it.
3. Select Apply.

If there are any bibliographic records associated with the item’s MMS ID, you see a Related Records link next to the badges in the Recommendation Insights section. This link displays the total number of related records in parentheses.

Selecting the Related Records link opens a list of all connected records, including alternate versions, editions, and other MMS IDs linked to the same intellectual work.

Additional Items

The Additional Items section displays the following information, depending on what data is available for the matching item:

• Title (clickable; opens the title record)
• MMS ID
• Barcode (clickable; opens the item editor when permitted)
• Item ID
• Availability indicator (green dot = available; grey dot = not available)
• Process type (clickable)
• Library/Location (clickable; opens holdings)
• Item Policy
• Fulfillment Note
• Provenance
• Physical Condition
• Included in Recommendations (project name and type; may include multiple names/types)
• Included in (My library/location scope, Comparison libraries/locations, or Other libraries/locations)

If a matching title has a different MMS ID, it gets the Different Title label.

Available row actions for displayed items depend on user privileges and may include:

• Edit Item
• Change Location
• Work Order
• Withdraw
• View Holdings
• View Holdings’ Items List
• Commit to Retain
• Remove from List (only appears for items that are included in the recommendations of the project that is being viewed)

To support efficient review of larger item sets:

• Use Sort by to order items by MMS ID, Library/Location, Temporary Location, or Status.
• Use the two filters to narrow results by:
  • Record (All, Same Record (i.e., matches based on the same MMS ID), or Matching Records (i.e., matches based on other factors, not MMS ID))
  • Included in (All, Comparison Libraries/Locations, Current Project Recommendations, My Library/Location Scope, Other Libraries/Locations)

At the bottom of the section, the following quick-access links are available:

• View full item list - Opens a sliding panel with a physical item search that includes all item IDs returned for the title.
• View items in libraries for reference - Opens a sliding panel that displays items from the selected reference libraries. Displays only when the project is internal and if you selected libraries for reference.
• View recommended items - Relevant when multiple items for the same title appear in the results list. Opens a sliding panel with all the items included in the recommendations list.

Electronic Matches

The Electronic Matches section displays matched electronic titles, ordered by the number of associated portfolios. How electronic matches impact recommendation generation depends on how you set up the Electronic Matches settings during project creation.

A single print item may be matched to multiple electronic bibliographic records.

The following indicators provide additional context:

• Network icon () – This icon indicates that the match originates from a Network Zone and is available in your institution.
• Electronic Match Found –This badge indicates that the item has at least one non-perpetual electronic match.
• Perpetual Electronic Match – This badge indicates that at least one portfolio with the matching title has perpetual access.
• Same Bibliographic Record – This badge indicates that electronic portfolios exist in the same bibliographic record as the print item.

Select View electronic portfolios to open a detailed panel showing all portfolios associated with a matched title. The panel provides key bibliographic and inventory information for each portfolio, including identifiers (such as ISBN and MMS ID), portfolio and collection details, purchase model, access type, and additional metadata such as creation and modification dates. 

When viewing recommendations, you can use two facets (Electronic Match Found and Perpetual Electronic Match) to quickly identify items with electronic equivalents or those that specifically have electronic matches with perpetual access.

Select View all title matches at the bottom of the Electronic Matches section to open a panel with the full list of all matched records.

Additional Details in the Compare To Section

Use the View full list and additional information link in the Compare To section to view detailed bibliographic and identifier data of all matching holdings in comparison institutions.

Selecting View full list and additional information opens a sliding panel that displays various useful data related to matching holdings in comparison institutions, such as:

• MMS IDs
• Titles
• Authors
• Publication date
• Publisher name
• ISBNs

If multiple identifiers exist, all available values are displayed. The panel lists one row per matching MMS ID per institution, so institutions with multiple matching records appear multiple times.

Some data points are hidden by default; use the panel’s configuration button to add additional columns to the sliding panel. All displayed fields support sorting.

Item-Level Actions (Commit to Retain or Remove from List)

If you decide to retain a recommended item, select Commit to Retain at the top of the item information card. The Commit to Retain action is available only to users with the Physical Inventory Operator role or the Physical Inventory Operator – Limited role (when granted access to the relevant workflow).

A pop-up window appears where you must select a Retention Reason from the drop-down menu (for details, see Retention Reason). You can also add an optional Retention Note and assign labels to the item. After filling in the details, select Retain Item. The retained item is then blurred in the list, and disappears after you refresh the list.

If you determine that a recommended item is not a worthy candidate for retention, select Remove from List. This action permanently removes the item from the project’s recommendations.

Bulk Actions

In addition to committing or removing items individually, you can take further actions on items. To do this, select the checkbox next to an item in the recommendations list.

When at least one item is selected, additional action buttons appear at the top of the screen. Here’s what each of them enables you to do:

• Run a Job – Lets you run a process directly on the selected items without creating a set first. The job options depend on your permissions and the type of records. For details, see Run a Job on Selected Search Results.
• Add to Itemized Set – Adds the selected item(s) to an existing fixed list (itemized set) so you can reuse them later in other workflows. For details, see Adding to Itemized Sets.
• Create Itemized Set – Creates a brand-new fixed list (itemized set) from the selected items. For details, see Creating an Itemized Set.
• Manage Labels – Allows you to tag selected items with custom labels. Labels can be searched, filtered, or used to help organize and track items across your repository. 

In addition to these actions, the Commit to Retain and Remove from List buttons are also available. These perform the same functions described in the item-level section but allow you to apply them in bulk to all selected items.

Commit to Retain and Remove from List actions always remove the affected items from the list of retention recommendations. By contrast, the Run a Job, Add to Itemized Set, and Create Itemized Set bulk actions prompt you to decide whether or not the selected items should remain in the list after the action is complete. To remove items after performing one of these actions, select the checkbox when prompted and then choose Continue.