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Possibillity to add print journal holdings to Primo holdings-file

In Primo only the electronic holdings for e-books and e-journals are taken into consideration when determining the availability for a record/article from the central index (PCI/CDI).

The libraries also have print/physical holdings of journals that can fulfill the needs of the end-user and that can fill gaps in the electronic coverage. If the user search for an article that the library only has as part of the physical journal holdings the availability of the article are set to "Not available" and dependig on the configuration the article might not even show up in the result-list.

This has been adressed in another Idea:
https://ideas.exlibrisgroup.com/forums/308176-primo/suggestions/19965871-physical-holdings-should-be-considered-in-determin

This idea has the status of "Already supported", but it is only supported by Primo VE and in my opinion (based on the comment from Ex Libris) does not completely solve the intention of the idea.

I understand that it might be difficult to automatically extract the correct coverage based on the existing data for the print journals.

I therefore ask that Ex Libris provides an option/function in Alma to either upload a file in a given format with the coverage of print journals, or some other way to structure the coverage of a print journal. I believe that this was an option in SFX earlier.

This information must then be added to the Primo holdings file and be used to determine the availablity of an article for the central index.

This must be supported for all Primo versions and not only Primo VE.

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Asbjørn Risan shared this idea  ·   ·  Admin →
Closed  ·  AdminYael (yael.shahar@clarivate.com, Ex Libris) responded  · 

Hello,

As discussed with the Product working groups as part of various NERS discussions, this will require a complete architectural change of the system, which is currently not planned.


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  • Joseph Deodato commented  · 

    Ideally, we would also like the link resolver to use the library's item-level holdings when determining which services to present to the user. Currently, the link resolver only matches physical inventory based on ISSN/title. However, it doesn't actually check the library's item holdings to ensure the appropriate volume and issue is available. As a result, patrons are unable to request the item they need via interlibrary loan because Alma cannot identify coverage gaps and assumes the library has the entire run of the journal.

  • Galen Jones commented  · 

    This would need to be opt in / opt out e.g. for institutions with overseas campuses, or large no.s of distance learners where provision of print journal articles isn't the appropriate solution.

  • Deborah Fitchett commented  · 

    Can I add all my votes to this?

    Users search for journal articles by article title all the time. If the results page blithely tells them "The library doesn't have a physical copy of this item," how are they to know a) that in fact we do have it and b) in order to find it they have to search for the journal title and then check the volume/issue numbers?

    This is probably the biggest barrier we have to people finding the papers they need - the entire purpose of a discovery layer.

  • Anne Woje commented  · 

    Suggestion supported! We need to be able to show our library users that articles they look up in Primo are also available in our print journals without having to look up the journal title first. Not only would it be user friendly, but it's also better use of already owned material.

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