Data are an essential part of research--the basis for analysis, science, creative work, and more. Open research practices enable researchers to share knowledge and outputs. Within this framework, data are shared in an open public repository for other researchers to build on to form new research or verify results.  

As of 2021, thanks to hard work by UBC Library and the Canadian data librarian community, datasets indexed by the Federated Research Data Repository (FRDR) can be connected to Omni through the ProQuest Central Discovery Index. This gives researcher patrons at all levels access to 100+ data repositories with 73,319 open dataset records. 

This past fall, McMaster Research Data Management Services and Collections worked together to enable this feature. This is a brief task, but one many libraries may not have integrated yet! We'll talk about steps to enable this integration and the benefits of making Canadian research data easily discoverable to our library user group, contributing to a strong data culture at university libraries.

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This presentation will show you how to harvest records from the eCampus Ontario Open Library collection and make them available in your instance of Omni.

• Create Normalization Rules for External Data Sources
• Create New Discovery Import Profile
• How to create linking rules for harvested records

You will be able to apply these steps to harvest and OAI-PMG data sources, for example, DSpace.

AtoM (or Access to Memory - the database of choice for many Archives) is designed to be open to web crawlers for easy and open searching through the most common search engines. What happens, though, when students and faculty rely on their Library's catalogue to find their resources? Archival collections at their own institutions could hold the key to their research, but will not be discovered ... until now! We will present on how we were able to link Queen's University Archives' AtoM descriptions into Omni and discuss the pitfalls and solutions we encountered along the path.

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Prior to migration Western Libraries used Summon for discovery and BePress for our institutional repository. Summon ingested BePress IR records – no problem. Alma – not so much.  At migration, we incorrectly assumed the ingest would function the same way in Alma. Attend to hear about our woes and commiserate. Maybe you can solve all of our problems!

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As the Resource Sharing landscape evolves, with RACER sunsetting and Alma ramping up, quantitative assessment of ILL services becomes more and more complex. At Western, staff use workarounds and manual movement of data across Alma (AFN & ISO), RACER, and WorldShare. A full picture of ILL activity requires an understanding of where data is duplicated in each platform and where it is unique, and how to decode the ambiguous outputs of Alma Analytics. This presentation will explore Resource Sharing statistics and reporting at Western, highlighting interesting trends and changes in 2022-2023 as services have developed, including a 3x increase in print ILL since pre-migration.

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Many libraries have or are beginning to see the need for a digital asset management system (DAMS) to increase the discoverability and access of their digital resources for patrons. This presentation outlines our experiences at uOttawa in selecting and implementing Alma Digital as our DAMS.

Based on a survey of DAMS used by other CARL institutions, the recommendations of an in-house working group, and the existing literature regarding DAMS, I selected three DAMS (Islandora, Hyrax, and Alma Digital) for an in-depth assessment on how well each software could satisfy our functional requirements.  To complete this analysis, I deployed test instances of the open-source software, reviewed documentation, completed a series of informal interviews with other repository administrators, and consulted service providers.  Although the goals of open-source software fit more closely with our Library’s vision, we decided Alma Digital best met our needs for a DAMS given our available resources and staff time.  Since its launch in June 2021, we have used Alma Digital to improve access to digitized rare books, popularize our aerial photographs collection, and replace our existing video hosting platform.

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Ontario universities have a well-established history of collaborating in various ways with collection development (especially e-resources) and resource sharing. For physical items, the biggest and latest example of this collaborative work is the automated fulfillment network (AFN), which provides streamlined access to huge swaths of physical collections in CF libraries to users regardless of CF institutional affiliation. CF made considerable investments to build the technical, logistical, and policy infrastructure that makes it all work. But it is mostly for print books, and many CF libraries now use e-preferred models for buying. Print books can be loaned to a user at another library, but ebooks can’t. How do we build the best print collection for AFN use? We set the framework for questions CF libraries will need to answer as we work to build the union collection first dreamed of sixty years ago.

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