Blacklight and Alma Known Areas of Change

Owned by Kate Lynch
Last updated: Aug 05, 2021
3 min read

The Blacklight Catalog is the user-facing discovery later for our ILS data.  Alma is the ILS software and provides a staff-facing web client for viewing and interacting with our ILS data for professional tasks.  This section lists areas in the Catalog that function differently with Alma data than they previously have with Voyager due to significant differences between the two ILS systems and their unique data flows into our systems.

Please visit the Catalog which is now backed by Alma data to see these areas; we welcome feedback through the #catalog channel on the PUL Slack and the Alma Catalog Testing Feedback Form.

  • Your Account

    • The updated Catalog provides your Library Account information (eg, charges/outstanding requests/fines and fees) through Alma’s Library Card client, called "Library Account in the Catalog.  There is a link to this client in the Catalog. Once you log into this Alma client, the same information and actions should be available. To access this, select the “Library Account” option under “Your Account” in the Catalog.
    • Outstanding digitization requests (from Illiad) will be visible under the “Digitization Requests” option under “Your Account.”

  • Availability Information

    • Availability information provided by the Alma API is coarser than what was previously available with the legacy Voyager system. We are limited in the number of times that our software can ask for this information from Alma via the API before our requests to the API from the catalog will be throttled. By keeping some things less detailed in certain views in the Catalog, we seek to ensure that all users see the information they need to accomplish their tasks.
    • More granular availability information is available to staff from the Alma web client.
    • Search results:
      • Availability information in the badges in search results reflects simplified status information with the following statuses:
        • "Available"
        • "Unavailable"
        • "Some items not available"
        • "View record for availability"
        • "Loading" (when Alma is slow to provide availability info)
        • "Undetermined" (if Alma does not respond)
      • Example
    • More granular availability information is available on the request page.
    • Mixed statuses for multiple items
      • When there are multiple different statuses for different items on a single record, the status will display as “Some items not available.”
      • Example

  • Location Name Changes

    • The display names of some shelf locations have been adjusted. 
    • The main location for each library on campus is now referred to with the term stacks. Example: Voyager’s "f" location is now labeled "Firestone Stacks"
    • Locations at ReCAP now include the string "Remote Storage".

  • "Where to Find It" Visual Map

    • The location mapper in “Where to Find It” which displays a map to a physical item’s shelf location will need to be reconfigured with the new Alma shelf location information after the Alma migration. Until this update is accomplished, the “Where to Find It” feature will instead display textual information to help the user find an item based on its location.

  • Testing Voyager bib IDs vs. Alma MMS IDs

    • Alma MMS IDs contain the Voyager bib ID for items that have bibs.
    • A Voyager bib ID can be converted to an MMS ID through the following formula: 99{bib ID}3506421
    • Example: 
      • Voyager bib ID: 1919878
      • Alma MMS ID: 9919198783506421
    • Catalog URLs that contain Voyager bib IDs should automatically redirect to URLs with Alma MMS IDs.

  • Bookmarks

    • Bookmarks are still be available, and in most cases link to the correct record exported from Alma.
    • Bookmarked journals and some e-books are likely to stop working due to changes in identifiers that cannot be mapped.