Grima: Whispering in Alma's Ear Using APIs

Abstract

Libraries use Alma for a variety of workflows. Some workflows are complex and lengthy, and are repeated often. Some are used too infrequently to remember the best way to do them in Alma. Some workflows just require the data in different formats. In this talk, I will describe my system for expressing workflows as a sequence of API calls, making them easy to use, reproduce, and modify.

My open-source library, Grima, provides web and command line interfaces for performing many common tasks in Alma. Some of these include: formatting records for printing, displaying records in a hierarchy, normalizing records, adding many items to a serial, creating bib-holding-item chains with common settings, and creating "boundwiths". Grima’s library (written in PHP) is general enough that new custom workflows can be quickly written for new projects.