With Alma development reaching its final phase, the work of the Alma Focus Group has completed its work in contributing to the design phase of the new system. Over 80 participants from our member institutions took part in the various Alma Focus groups on Acquisition, Fulfillment and Metadata management which were later united into a joint Alma Focus Group.
During and after the numerous live sessions via Webex Ex Libris got a great amount of feedback from the Focus group members to all aspects of the product design. Susan Sterns, the leader of the focus group and the Vice President of Strategic Partnerships, highly valued the contribution of the Focus group and named some examples of the major areas where the feedback had a great impact on the development of Alma, including: streamlining workflows; simplifying setup and configuration; integration and interoperability with external systems; simplification without losing robustness and flexibility.
The work of the Alma Focus Group ended with the release of the recordings of the Partner release 3 to the group and also here strong feedback from the members is expected. After this, new ways of collaboration on the further Alma development will need to be found. The day is also coming nearer for an Alma Product Working Group within IGeLU to be established.
Jirka Kende, IGeLU Chair