2013 Charleston Conference

This session will provide an overview of the VCU Libraries’ journey from implementation up until “Go Live” through the eyes of the Acquisitions Department at Virginia Commonwealth University. This session will explain why the VCU Libraries decided to become an Early Adopter of the Ex Libris Alma system. As Early Adopters, there were many challenges encountered by the Implementation Task Force. The Task Force had to make configuration decisions, attend training sessions, conduct internal training sessions, analyze existing workflows, improve the efficiency of workflows and review configuration and migrated data. The objective of the session will be to identify the work involved in preparing for and implementing a cloud-based library management system. It will discuss the advantages of moving to a cloud-based system and challenges encountered. Attendees will learn about implementation processes, cleanup and workflow issues and how issues and problems are reported to Ex Libris. Finally, this session will share lessons learned by the Alma Implementation Task Force.