Moving to Alma-D
According to Ex Libris products roadmap, Digital resource management functionalities are being implemented in Alma.
The DigiTool PWG follows with Ex Libris Product Managers the developments and tries to assure the existence of core functionalities. DigiTool continues to be supported by ExLibris and service packs are used to correct bugs.
Alma-D
Alma’s Digital approach is promising improvement of functionalities and reducing people’s effort to accomplish tasks.
One very interesting workflow already in place is the one related to fulfillment of requests by the end users:
in DigiTool environment the workflow was not present and some workarounds were developed by the community, but the integration of Alma assures a very streamlined workflow that will meet most institutions’ needs.
DAM support
Most recent developments include the integration with local Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems, using OAI-PMH, to eliminate the need of double document description and a real integration when presenting combined search results in Primo.
Storage
This functionality will be complemented with an Alma storage, allowing organization to combine local and cloud storages and even non Ex Libris DAM integration.
The workflows for ingesting new documents are very Rosetta like, approaching the OAIS model as reference and promising a real preservation ready system.
Roadmap
The roadmap for Alma and Primo includes several batch operations and transformers that promise to contribute to a much higher degree of work automation and discovery functionalities.
Future roadmap and current implementations are promising a much more useful solution both for libraries and end users!
Luís Miguel Costa, IGeLU Digitool PWG coordinator