Primo
Your feedback matters to us. Help us improve Primo by telling us what you’d like to see using the message areas below. You can also can support something already posted.
We would love to be able to respond to every idea that is submitted, but this is not feasible. We are, however, committed to responding to the most popular ideas—those that have received the most points.
For more information please review our FAQ and guidelines. Thank you.
654 results found
-
Allow customization of the display on the Primo Services Page so that metadata from the OpenURL doesn't present as a matched resource
Currently, when a user follows an OpenURL link to a Primo Services page, the page takes the metadata fields from the OpenURL and presents them in a format that mirrors the "Brief record display" from Primo search results and full record displays. This is misleading to users, who assume that the OpenURL has found a match for a resource when in fact they may not have.
We would like to be able to configure a separate display for the Primo Services Page, so that we can make it clearer to users that what they are seeing is a formatted version…
120 votes -
Incorporate a systematic review content type/filter into Primo
Systematic reviews are key to evidence based medicine practice. They “... establish whether scientific findings are consistent and can be generalised across populations, settings, and treatment variations, or whether findings vary significantly by particular subsets (Mulrow, 1994).” They also identify existing gaps in the literature requiring further research. The number of systematic reviews published has grown from less than 50 a year in the early 1990s to almost 36,000 in 2022 (Brignardello-Petersen, 2025) Health sciences researchers, clinicians and students would benefit from the ability to efficiently limit search results to systematic reviews in Primo with a corresponding content type/filter. Currently…
168 votes -
Primo NDE UI: Introduce Dark mode
Our users are complaining that the new UI is too bright and causes eyestrain and specifically requesting a Dark Mode option. We have also developed our new website using the same materials/components as are used in the NDE to align our visual identity so we know that it is possible with the tools at hand. Lastly, I recently saw this article and the first thing it mentioned is that young people want dark mode: https://www.choice360.org/libtech-insight/5-surprising-things-ive-learned-about-gen-z-college-students/
184 votes -
Add Journal Read and Publish Details to Alma and Make Them Discoverable in Primo
As libraries continue to add more read and publish journal agreements, it’s important that researchers are able to easily discover which journals are part of these agreements, the open access article publishing charges that are and are not covered by these agreements, and other relevant details related to open access publishing from the library’s read and publish agreements.
There are several open access journal discovery products that provide end users with this kind of information, but they must perform searches on separate platforms, and library staff must maintain these holdings outside of Alma.
Examples include:
ChronosHub: https://stanford.chronoshub.io/?q=%220021-9371%22&journaltitle=Journal%20of%20British%20Studies
Open Journal Finder…
111 votes -
Primo NDE: Make the display of user initials independent of the sort order for user names in Alma
In Primo NDE, when a user is logged in, the initials are displayed according to the sort order for user names defined in Alma (Configuration > User Management > User Details > User Name Display). If the sort order is set to "lastName, firstName" ("Smith, John") in Alma the initials will display as "SJ" in Primo.
We think it should be possible to configure these two appearences indenpendently. It should be possible to sort user names as "lastName, firstName" in Alma, but display the initials in Primo as "firstName lastName".
66 votes -
Apply Display Logic Rules to CDI direct linking records
Currently, records that provide full text solely via a CDI link-in-record URL are not subject to Display Logic Rules (see documentation note below). This leads to inconsistent behavior and display compared to other CDI records.
For example, our article ILL General Electronic Service is configured not to display when there is full-text available on a record. This works as expected for records that have full-text provided via the link resolver, but for CDI direct linking records, the ILL GES displays alongside the full-text link. This confuses our patrons, who think that the presence of the ILL link means the full-text…
115 votes -
Clickable logo single URL insufficient for multilingual institution
There is only one field available for association with the clickable library logo in Primo VE. This means that some users in a multilingual institution will always be directed away from their chosen language interface after clicking the logo. Please provide at least one other field that is sensitive to the interface language in which the logo is clicked so that Primo VE may fulfil its promise of multilingualism.
35 votes -
Restore One-Click Permalink Access in NDE Brief and Full Record Displays
As a library staff member and end user, I would like direct, one-click access to copy a permalink from both the brief and full record displays so that I can quickly and efficiently share stable links to resources without navigating through multiple menu layers.
Description:
In the original Primo VE UI, both brief and full record displays include a dedicated permalink button that allows users to access a permanent link to a resource with a single click. This streamlined access is essential for common workflows including:
- Reference and instruction staff sharing resources with students and faculty
- Liaison librarians embedding links…
75 votes -
Natural language search in NDE should support customized local resource types
Some of our consortium members who are testing Primo NDE have discovered that our custom resource types do not work with Ask Anything (the natural language search) in Primo NDE. For example:
The search "i need print books about water" returns only ebooks. Due to our custom "print books" resource type, only e-books remain in the OTB "books" resource type in Primo.
The search "i need audiocassettes on bach" returns only audio CDs, as we have custom resource types for other audio formats (audiocassettes, lp records, etc.).
The search "i need videocassettes on figaro" returns only streaming videos, as we…
72 votes -
Ability to boost Ranking of Search Results in Primo VE based on accessibility
Some of our consortium libraries would like the ability to boost the ranking of books that readers can request from libraries.
Currently, the Ranking Configuration page enables you to configure various aspects of the ranking algorithm based on Field Boosting, Date Boosting, Resource type Boosting, Institution Boosting, but not on accessibility.82 votes -
Allow users to customize PNX addata subfields
Currently, the normalization rules for creating addata subfields are not available to users. As a result, redundant information is included in subfields intended for authors, creators or titles and as result the citations are inaccurate.
79 votes -
My Library Card: date of the last renewal
We suggest that the "Date of the last Renewal" field should only update when a successful renewal happens, rather than when the courtesy letter is sent.
It happens in local loan and in Rapido, and it is confusing for patrons. We would like this workflow was adjusted.
42 votes -
Improve advanced searching in non-Roman languages so a "Title" + "Starts with" search parameter queries the MARC 880 field
When combined, the “Title” + “Starts with” advanced search parameters do not query the linked MARC 880 field. This prevents users from successfully using this index for non-Roman language search queries.
When the ExLibiris Development Team reviewed this issue previously, they found that Primo VE's design excludes the 880 field from Title Starts With indexing due to index size limitations.
We’ve been advised that “Title Contains” and “Title is Exact” do index the 880 field, and can serve as a workaround. However, users expect consistent search behavior across all indexes, regardless of language used in the search query.
A few…
60 votes -
Resource type newspaper articles in main discovery search
Make it possible to activate resource type newspaper articles in main discovery search, not just in newspaper search. It should be possible to activate both all newspaper articles or included/excluded at collection level. We have the Swedish database Article search/ Artikelsök and today the newspaper articles is not visible in the central index together with other resource types like book reviews, journal articles etc.
64 votes -
Display campus in Primo VE for unsuppressed e-Collections and databases
In the consortial environment, we would like to take advantage of the new functionality of central NZ-activation (network zone) of e-collections working with IMGrs (inventory management groups). We have some institutions (not all IZs) which would like to work with IMGrs, some not, those who do, some do use campuses others do not.
We would like to see in Primo VE the distinction per campus also for databases and for non-suppressed e-collections (if used), as it works for portfolios so to better guide the end-user which collection would be the one to use.
If an IZ uses IMGr in Alma…
32 votes -
Include DOIs in references in APA 7th ed. format for records coded with Dublin Core.
Exlibris has just updated the APA 7th ed. citation format settings to include the DOI for MARC21-encoded records (idea exchange: Improve APA citation format to include the DOI for an article), but we also want Exlibris performs the same process for Dublin Core-encoded records.
Users are increasingly turning to PRIMO to obtain the citation reference of a record they are interested in and in many cases their metadata is in DublinCore format, as more and more catalogs integrate repositories that encode information following this format.
97 votes -
Put search/feedback links in logical order on mobile menu - NDE
In NDE on small screens, the Advanced Search, Feedback (Report a problem) and Ask Anything (natural language search) links appear in the menu in that order - see screenshot attached.
At minimum, the two search options should be adjacent, and in the order they appear on full screen. The feedback/report a problem should not be in the middle of them, as it is a completely different type of function.
Some institutions may even wish to relocate the feedback option to the bottom of the top menu links.
The original case response was to log here on the idea exchange, as…
24 votes -
Fix Export and Print Problems with My Library Card in Primo VE and NDE
Background:
When a user goes to their My Library Card in Primo VE they can see all the items that they have checked out. However, if the user tries to print or export this list, it excludes any suppressed bib records. Interlibrary loan records are usually suppressed because we don't want our search results to return titles we don't own. As a result, the user can see the interlibrary loan titles they have checked out, but they cannot print or export them.We reported this problem to Ex Libris, after a graduate student noticed the discrepancy and reported it to…
35 votes -
Limit Research Assistant results to resources patrons can access
It would be nice at a configuration level to be able to limit the Research Assistant results to those within an institution's collection and OA as the default setting, rather than the entire CDI as it is currently.
Users could then select to expand their search to the CDI, like they currently do when searching Primo.49 votes -
Display tag for Open Educational Resources for CZ and IZ records in Primo
Open Educational Resources tags in CDI records are clearly displayed in Primo VE (e.g. Pressbooks titles). I would like to see this tag extended to include CZ and IZ records for open educational resources in a similar way to how we make the Open Access icon display in Primo.
21 votes
- Don't see your idea?