Physical Items : Reports and statistics on physical items from the Analytics module which is separate from the main Alma interface
In Alma, unlike Aleph and many other systems, the type of search results you get are determined by what categories you choose to search rather than being a consistent results display, for, say, a known title. Entering the same search terms for different categories of searches will give you different information about the same items. We saw this briefly in the Alma Interface Basics section, but you will need a deeper understanding to end up with the results you need for your work. Alma is configured this way because of the integrated nature of the system. Rather than having a separate acquisitions module, a circulation module, and a URL resolver, etc, it is all one system. So it is your search choices that lead you to the area of the system you need. The main search categories:
The stuff the library owns and manages:
How the library buys stuff:
How the library connects its stuff and its users
So far, so good. But where it gets confusing is when there are similar search fields in different categories. Do you want an All titles search? or do you want a Physical Title search or a Physical Item search? What's the difference? How do you figure out whether you need to search Electronic Titles, Electronic Portfolios, or Electronic Collections? This section of the training guide delineates what you get when you search confusing categories.
Disclaimer: SUNY Potsdam does not have any digital stuff in Alma. We expect in the future that we might have things like the Crane Performance Database and perhaps a file of digitized photos from the archives, but for the moment, we have nothing in the "Digital" category. The principles, however, would be the same.
To get the results display you're looking for, what matters most is what broad category you search and not at all what fields you search with; the results displays are based on the large category. One thing to note is that in the simple search, only a select subset of all possible fields is available for searching. Using the advanced search will allow access to all the fields for that category.
An All Titles search includes results from all three types of resources (Physical, Electronic, and Digital). As such, it makes fewer assumptions about why you want those results and tends to give the most comprehensive record of all the search categories in the brief record display.
All the records will show you which zone the record comes from, and the appropriate record fields for that category of stuff. In addition you will see some information about its inventory status, and under the three ellipses, a variety of menu actions that go with that category. If you are not sure what category to search, try an All Titles search first to see if it will provide a link to where you want to end up.
Searching at the physical title assumes you wish to do something in Acquisitions or Cataloging as you are coming in at the level of the bibliographic record.
The assumption with a physical item search is that you wish to do something with the holdings or item records or that you are involved in some Resource Management task.
Fortunately, most of the time most staff will not need to do anything with Electronic stuff. But because of the interaction of Electronic stuff with how users see our resources in Primo, it is important to both understand the basic structural framework and vocabulary of how Electronic stuff is handled in Alma as there are trickle-down issues. So you will, occasionally, need to dip into the land of electronic stuff.
There is an entire section of this training guide on Electronic resources, so this is the bare minimum. Formal definitions can be found in the Alma Glossary, but here are the basics:
The contrast of everyday vocabulary with how Alma uses the same words makes this area particularly challenging to understand. In this section, we are focused on the results you will get from each of these three searches. The deeper nuances will be addressed in the section of this guide focused on Electronic Resources.
There are several functional areas in Alma where sets can be created, but we will focus here on sets of stuff that the library owns. Sets will be useful for analytics and various tasks, but one of the nice features of sets is that they can be exported into an excel spreadsheet for later manipulation. Alma also has many areas where spreadsheets can be uploaded as well, so it can be useful to create the set, export it, manipulate it, and then upload it.
This is easy. Once you have a set of search results, if you are allowed to create a set from that search, you will see a "save query" button to the upper right. This will prompt you through the creation of the logical set.
This is less easy. The easiest way to create an itemized set in Alma is to create the set first, and then put stuff into it. This is done in the menu Admin>manage sets.
All Titles search
Compare other title searches
Searching Electronic Stuff
Create sets
