search

pulibrary / alma-notices

configurations for notices sent from alma
3 stars 0 forks source link

Excel Alma Lookup Project summary #217

Closed tventimi closed 1 year ago

tventimi commented 1 year ago

Per the request of the ATT, below is a description of the "Excel Alma Lookup" project (one of my performance goals for this year). This is an Excel add-in that allows one to search an Alma catalog from within a spreadsheet. For example, if a spreadsheet contains a column of ISBNs, the tool can look them up in Alma, and populate another column or columns with data from the records it retrieves. The tool can look up any search key supported by local Alma instance and retrieve any bibliographic field (and several key holdings fields) from the records. It accesses the catalog using the SRU interface, so it does not use API keys and is easy to configure (you only need to enter the SRU Base URL, e.g. https://princeton.alma.exlibrisgroup.com/view/sru/01PRI_INST ). While there is some overlap between the functionality of this tool and Alma Analytics, many users find this tool easier to use, since it has a simple interface and seamlessly imports the catalog data into an existing spreadsheet.

A version of this tool has been used by PUL staff for years (even in the Voyager days). Right now, it is mostly used by selectors to compare vendor-supplied title lists against the catalog. However, with the move to Alma, I found a way to make the tool easily configurable for any institution's Alma instance, which is why I am interested in releasing this to the public now. I am currently getting feedback from users both here and at other institutions. The tool has been run successfully using the catalogs at Harvard, UPenn, UC San Diego, and the University of California network.

I have spoken with Esme Cowles about the project already, and he is fine with us releasing it to the public. I have the following github repo set up. The README describes the basic usage, and there is an EXE file that can be downloaded an installed on a Windows machine (no need to be administrator)

https://github.com/pulibrary/ExcelAlmaLookup

Right now, for the Princeton catalog, the tool can retrieve any field from the bib record, as well as the AVA, AVD, or AVE fields. I am also looking into using the "ISO Holdings" data discussed in ticket #579. This will allow the tool to retrieve more holdings fields, such as barcodes. However, this would be a feature added for a future release down the line.

Question: In trying this with various institutions, I have noticed that some have the AVA,D,E fields enabled, and others do not (Harvard, for example). Is this a setting that is configured somewhere? (I couldn't find anything about it). I wanted to mention in the documentation how to enable those fields in the SRU if they are not already. They are not required to use the tool, but without them it will only be able retrieve bibliographic data.

Please let me know any feedback you have about the tool, or any concerns about how it is being used.

tventimi commented 1 year ago

I posted this in the wrong repo, please disregard.