[Wactclc-alma] Correcting Material Type in ALMA

Thu Apr 2 14:42:03 PDT 2020

Completely understand! It's nice to have the collective wisdom though as many here know so many shortcuts!

It took me awhile to understand Alma analytics, so I usually run my reports from the main Alma location.

I wanted to find all of the same errors my library has, just like you are working on and here is what works for me. Know that it may not be the best or fastest method!

I select "Physical titles" and advanced search.

I break my search by "location" that way I'm systematically going through each area of my library; so I select: Physical item: current location equals and then select whichever area I'm working on.
That way I can see in the facets what might have problems. For instance, if I selected "dvd" as my location and I see "book" in the material type facet I know where to drill down.

Usually though I just export the whole thing- that way I can look at each column and see any anomalies that need to be fixed.

When I get all the errors out of THAT report, I often toggle the search from "physical titles" to "physical items" and keep everything else the same and rerun. That often results in me finding additional errors.

So much is trial and error and it really is whack a mole! I fix one issue and find ten more!

I hope this helps a little!

Best,
Maryanne

From: Wactclc-alma <wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu> On Behalf Of McGaughey, Colleen
Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2020 2:17 PM
To: 'WACTCLC Alma Discussion' <wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu>
Subject: Re: [Wactclc-alma] Correcting Material Type in ALMA

Hi Maryanne,

I sort of follow what you are saying, but I really find this format of having multiple people responding on how to work out a problem confusing. At this point, I am not sure the best place to begin, as I have been told a variety of things to do. It was originally planned that I would work on these sort of project over our quarterly break, so I thought that this would be a good time to begin working on this project.

I would like to capture ALL of the materials in our collection that have issues, but I am not sure what fields to include, if I need to do each Material Type/Item Policy separately. You mentioned using the filter for "lifecycle" and "active". I didn't even know that those were select-able options. I know how to export the fields into an Excel spread, but I have no clue on how to make it a set that ALMA will run to fix the remainder of the items.

I hope that my questions make sense.

Thank you for reaching out to me to assist with this issue.

Regards,
Colleen McGaughey
Clover Park Technical College

________________________________
From: Wactclc-alma <wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu>> on behalf of Hirning, Maryanne <mhirning at lcc.ctc.edu<mailto:mhirning at lcc.ctc.edu>>
Sent: Thursday, April 2, 2020 1:52 PM
To: 'WACTCLC Alma Discussion' <wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Wactclc-alma] Correcting Material Type in ALMA

Also, in regard to the ones you look up in Alma coming back "empty," you're getting historical data. Use the filter for "lifecycle" and select "active" I believe, so that you don't get withdrawn items.

From: Wactclc-alma <wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu>> On Behalf Of Hirning, Maryanne
Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2020 1:46 PM
To: 'WACTCLC Alma Discussion' <wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Wactclc-alma] Correcting Material Type in ALMA

Colleen,

I have MANY of these type of issues- what I do is run the report the way Wade described and then import it (with all fields) into an excel spreadsheet. I delete any of the lines that have the correct info, and make my sets from the remainder that need to be fixed.

Hope that makes sense and helps a little!

Best,

Maryanne

From: Wactclc-alma <wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu>> On Behalf Of McGaughey, Colleen
Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2020 1:17 PM
To: 'WACTCLC Alma Discussion' <wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Wactclc-alma] Correcting Material Type in ALMA

Wade,

I could give that a try, but then I would be capturing ALL of the videos we own, and the whole collection wasn't assigned the wrong material type and item policy.

I have been having some issues with the report I did a screenshot of in the previous email. I copied some barcodes from the report and tried to look up some items by Physical Item, and Barcode. The search results come back empty. What could be causing this to happen?

Thanks.

Colleen

________________________________

From: Wactclc-alma <wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu>> on behalf of Guidry, Wade <WadeG at bigbend.edu<mailto:WadeG at bigbend.edu>>
Sent: Thursday, April 2, 2020 11:19 AM
To: 'WACTCLC Alma Discussion' <wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Wactclc-alma] Correcting Material Type in ALMA

Colleen,

For that, you can do a physical items advanced search, and look for 'call number prefix' (a holdings metadata eleent) equal to 'video'

As long as the call number prefix is uniformly assigned, that should get you there.

[cid:image001.png at 01D608F9.F9302810]

Wade Guidry

WACTCLC

Library Consortium Services Manager

wadeg at bigbend.edu<mailto:wadeg at bigbend.edu>

http://www.wactclc.org<http://www.wactclc.org/>

509.760.4474

Pronouns: he/him/his

From: Wactclc-alma [mailto:wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu] On Behalf Of McGaughey, Colleen
Sent: Thursday, April 2, 2020 11:10 AM
To: WACTCLC Alma Discussion <wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Wactclc-alma] Correcting Material Type in ALMA

This is a screenshot of what I am working with...

[cid:image002.png at 01D608F9.F9302810]

As you can see there are calculators, laptops, videorecordings, etc that all have the material type "Other". I have not found a good way to capture the videorecordings into a query, so that we can do a bulk change. We are trying to make sure that our materials are assigned the correct Material Type. For example, yesterday I discovered that we had 28 calculator manuals listed under Material Type "Other", with the Item Policy: Multimedia Equipment. This was easy enough to do a query on, to change the Material type to book, and the item policy to paperback.

I have found it challenging trying to figure out a way to get ALMA to do a search for all video recordings with the material type "other", so that I can do a bulk change.

We also have a equipment where there is no material type for in ALMA, such as floppy drives, dvd players, DVD/VHS players, etc. What do libraries tend to do with the records for these items, since ALMA does not have the feature to add additional material types?

Thanks for your assistance and feedback!

Colleen McGaughey

Clover Park Technical College

________________________________

From: Wactclc-alma <wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu>> on behalf of Thomas, Kirsti <Kirsti.Thomas at seattlecolleges.edu<mailto:Kirsti.Thomas at seattlecolleges.edu>>
Sent: Thursday, April 2, 2020 10:38 AM
To: WACTCLC Alma Discussion <wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Wactclc-alma] Correcting Material Type in ALMA

Colleen,

We're working on a similar clean-up project at Seattle Colleges. We started out with an Alma Analytics report of Material Types by location (Physical Items subject area).

Most libraries tend to keep like materials with like materials, so having the Materials Type "DVD" in your Main location, or Materials Type "Other" in your video location is usually a sign that something's wrong.

Here's a screenshot from the criteria tab of the Alma Analytics report we're using:

[cid:image003.jpg at 01D608F9.F9302810]

When we spot something like Videocassettes in a "Music CD' location...

[cid:image004.jpg at 01D608F9.F9302810]

We then do an advanced Physical items search in Alma (exactly like you've done), for Physical Item Material Type = Video cassette and Holdings Permanent Location = [Library] Music CDs.

There are usually a small enough number that we can just correct each item record manually.

If you have a lot that need correcting, after you do your Advanced Search, you can use the Save Query box to save these item records into a set.

[cid:image005.jpg at 01D608F9.F9302810]

You probably want to set the Privacy button to "No" when you save your set.

When you save your set it will be a "Logical" set.  This means it's dynamic and the contents of the set will change after you update the item records.  This can be a good thing-- if you run the update job and there's nothing in the set afterwards, it's a sign that the update worked.

You can also take the set you created and create what's called an "Itemized" set from it.  An itemized set is static-- things in the set stay in the set even after you update the records.

[cid:image006.jpg at 01D608F9.F9302810]

Material Type codes can be used to control circulation (e.g. loan limits), so it's good to check with whoever is in charge of configuring your Alma Fulfillment settings to make sure that any Fulfillment rules which use Material Type codes get updated if necessary.

It will be ok!

Kirsti S. Thomas

Library Technical Service Manager

Seattle Colleges

kirsti.thomas at seattlecolleges.edu<mailto:kirsti.thomas at seattlecolleges.edu>

From: Wactclc-alma <wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:wactclc-alma-bounces at lists.ctc.edu>> On Behalf Of McGaughey, Colleen
Sent: Wednesday, April 1, 2020 14:22
To: Wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu<mailto:Wactclc-alma at lists.ctc.edu>
Subject: [Wactclc-alma] Correcting Material Type in ALMA

Hi all,

I hope that I am posting this to the correct email address. This is my first time posting to WACTCLC.

A few months ago I started working at technical college. I have been in library services for many years, but have never used ALMA.

A short time after I started, I did an analytic report and realized that our collection could use some tidying up. For exam, there are a items that display the Material Type as "Other", when it is really a videorecording. I would like to correct these records to display the Material Type as "Video Cassette". I know that I need to do a search and save a query in order to run a job, but I have been having a hard time with getting the results I want on my ALMA searches.

I have tried different variations of searches. I am attaching a screenshot below of one of my search attempts which provided 0 search results.

[cid:image007.png at 01D608F9.F9302810]

I used "videorecording" in the title, as most of our video cassettes list [videorecording] as part of the title.

I would really appreciate your tips, tricks and advice on how to best accomplish this task.

Thanks!

Colleen McGaughey

Clover Park Technical College

CAUTION: This email originated outside of the Seattle Colleges' email system. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Questions? Contact IT Services at x6333 (Central), x3630 (North), x5844 (South) or email ITHelp at seattlecolleges.edu<mailto:ITHelp at seattlecolleges.edu>.

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