Author: fishere

Sent on behalf of Dean German:

Dear Colleagues,

I’m pleased to provide an update on Alma from Ex Libris, the new library service platform for University of Houston Libraries, the UH Law Library, UH Clear Lake, and UH Downtown.  

On Thursday, November 29^th, members of the Alma Steering Committee held a conference call with Tony Gibbons, our Ex Libris customer onboarding representative, to kick off our Alma implementation! Tony provided a high-level overview of the next 6-7 months of the implementation project. The first phase is onboarding, starting now through January 2019, where we will review the project schedule and high-level milestones, and begin preparing our Sierra ILS (and other systems’) data for migration to the Alma test environment. We will also gain access to the Alma sandbox server so that library staff may begin exploring the Alma environment.

Weekly conference calls between Ex Libris representatives and the Libraries’ project managers (Richard Guajardo and Lee Hilyer) will begin the first week of December to continue the conversation and prepare for the second phase (project implementation) which begins in January and concludes in July 2019. Other project team members and key stakeholders will be included as needed. The final phase is known as “Switch to Support,” when the Ex Libris project team concludes its work, the system is live, and support needs are handled through regular channels.

Our current go-live date is scheduled for July 23, 2019. More information, a detailed schedule, and links to further training opportunities will be provided soon at sites.lib.uh.edu/alma.

Lisa German
Dean of University Libraries and Elizabeth D. Rockwell Chair
University of Houston Libraries
4333 University Dr.
Houston TX 77204-2000
Ph. 713-743-9795
Lagerman@central.uh.edu

Posted on behalf of Dean German:

Dear Colleagues,

I’m pleased to announce the members of the Alma Implementation Steering Committee:

• Nora Dethloff
• Christina Gola
• Richard Guajardo
• Lee Hilyer
• John Lehner (chair)
• Rob Spragg
• Annie Wu

This group will be coordinating our institutional effort in the implementation of Alma from Ex Libris, the new library service platform for UH Libraries, the UH Law Library, UHCL, and UHD. As you may know, approximately 95% of the resources we provide to our community are electronic. Alma will replace Sierra, Serials Solutions and other systems we currently use to manage e-resources. By moving to Alma, we will significantly reduce the complexity of our resource management system, establishing one integrated platform with streamlined workflow efficiency and user-friendly features, benefiting both internal administrators and end users.

Over the next year, several cross-departmental work teams will be deployed as we make the transition to Alma. Rest assured that many of you will have the opportunity to lend your expertise along the way, and will play an integral part in the Alma implementation. We cannot do this without you. You’ll be excited to know that Alma will allow all of us to work smarter, not harder.

We are finalizing the contract and will be starting work soon. We will be posting progress updates online at the Alma blog, sites.lib.uh.edu/alma/; please bookmark this site, as it will be our primary location for Alma news relevant to UH Libraries, Law, UHCL, and UHD.  A comprehensive Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) section will also be populated here in the coming months as we learn more about all of the incredible features that Alma offers. We will also post updates and documentation to an internal Alma intranet site applicable to UH Libraries staff.

I am very excited about the move to Alma and the opportunities it affords for an agile resource management system.

Lisa German
Dean of University Libraries and Elizabeth D. Rockwell Chair
University of Houston Libraries
4333 University Dr.
Houston TX 77204-2000
Ph. 713-743-9795
Lagerman@central.uh.edu