What is Primo?

An Ex Libris product, Primo is the application providing the customer interface to an institution’s resources (print, electronic, and digital).

What is Alma?

An Ex Libris product, Alma supports the tasks necessary to keep your library in operation. These include acquisitions, cataloging, fulfillment, and assessment. The Alma application is used by your Library staff and replaces the library's old library system, Aleph.

Why are we migrating?

SUNY’s contract with Aleph (current system) expires in 2020. In anticipation of this change, the needs of SUNY libraries were considered alongside the current library software market. Ex Libris’s Alma and Primo were chosen as the next system. The data in Aleph will need to be migrated to the new system. In addition, workflow changes will be necessary and opportunities for collaboration and cooperation will emerge in the new system environment.

What systems will go away and be replaced?

There is a lot of functionality in both Alma and Primo which will replace several existing systems. Systems currently in use that will be replaced include Aleph, our current discovery service (Summon), our current electronic holdings management system (Serials Solutions), and our current link resolver (360 Link).

What about Summon, how will I search for library materials?

Primo will be the new SUNY-wide discovery layer and will replace Summon. It would be possible to keep a separate discovery layer, but not practical. Primo is fully integrated with Alma. Summon would require a separate knowledge-base (360Core).

Primo looks and functions remarkably like Summon. Most users won’t notice a difference. Summon pulls metadata from all submitted records to create a ‘master’ record, they call this match-and-merge. This allows our patrons to search the full-text of a book even if we only have it in print or to see the table of contents even if our record is brief. Primo lacks this functionality.