Alma, Analytics, and API all the things: Producing custom automated features in a SAAS environment

Abstract

We propose to present on 2 cases in which Emory University utilizes Alma and Alma Analytics API’s as well as an OCLC API and SRU queries to (1) automatically create a Newly Acquired facet in ExLibris' Primo and (2) automate OCLC holdings updates for deleted or withdrawn materials. The purpose of this presentation will be to not only provide actual use cases, source code, and queries for features that any Alma libraries can easily and cheaply implement, but also to inspire tech-savvy Alma users to look at utilizing Analytics API’s for more than just data gathering and data visualization. We use Python to make the Alma and Analytics API calls to retrieve and update bibliographic records, make OCLC API calls to remove holdings, and place SRU queries to avoid removing OCLC holdings where the "deleted" records are still in Alma. We use cronjobs to automate these processes. All queries and source code will be made available via GitHub.