Summon over Alma

Abstract

Eastern Michigan University has been a Summon user since 2011 and a Voyager user since 1998. As we have explored options for migrating from Voyager, one of the driving factors has been that we did not want to move away from Summon. In September 2016, we began a migration to Alma which will include Summon as our discovery layer. This presentation will describe this experience; Summon over Alma (SoA) is scheduled to be delivered to us on January 22, 2017 and we have an Alma/Summon go live date of May 8, 2017. Changes to Summon will include adding all patron account interactions to the interface and placing requests for items in our automated storage and retrieval system (ASRS). While Alma includes Course Reserves functionality, we will need new ways to expose these items to the public. And ingest of our catalog items will need to be migrated to an Alma to Summon process. There will be issues with migrating from one Summon instance to another. Records and searches previously saved or bookmarked may no longer work. Our method for displaying our New Book Shelf will need to change. And other customizations that we currently have, like item usage statistics, will no longer be available in our SoA instance.