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Statistical Report for Alma


2022 Survey Results
Product: Alma Response Distribution Statistics
CategoryResponses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ModeMeanMedian
ILS Satisfaction429 1 2 2 6 23 54 208 113 20 77.027
ILS Functionality429 1 1 1 5 4 22 59 158 135 43 77.167
Print Functionality426 2 1 9 10 40 139 175 50 87.408
Electronic Functionality427 1 4 2 7 10 21 69 140 138 35 77.007
Company Satisfaction425 2 4 3 13 18 37 94 149 88 17 76.527
Support Satisfaction426 2 7 5 27 35 63 98 105 69 15 76.026
Support Improvement0 00.00
Company Loyalty422 7 3 2 8 16 42 56 116 103 69 76.877
Open Source Interest408 102 38 58 45 32 51 28 23 15 13 03.113

CategoryTotalYespercent
Considering new ILS436 163.67%
Considering new Interface436 173.90%
System Installed on time?436 00.00%

Average Collection size: 2761453

TypeCount
Public2
Academic351
School0
Consortium11
Special3

Size CategoryCount
[1] Under 10,0006
[2] 10,001-100,00081
[3] 100,001-250,00068
[4] 250,001-1,000,000119
[5] 1,000,001-10,000,000111
[6] over 10,000,00114



2021 Survey Results
Product: Alma Response Distribution Statistics
CategoryResponses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ModeMeanMedian
ILS Satisfaction367 1 5 4 12 29 61 137 98 20 76.837
ILS Functionality366 3 5 10 20 44 126 124 34 77.127
Print Functionality364 1 5 8 15 43 106 148 38 87.288
Electronic Functionality366 2 3 8 16 27 67 114 102 27 76.807
Company Satisfaction367 1 6 16 15 33 76 117 82 21 76.557
Support Satisfaction365 1 5 9 19 25 47 85 97 55 22 76.146
Support Improvement0 00.00
Company Loyalty359 6 4 7 15 12 46 22 92 86 69 76.767
Open Source Interest354 116 30 52 31 23 43 16 17 10 9 02.772

CategoryTotalYespercent
Considering new ILS376 164.26%
Considering new Interface376 225.85%
System Installed on time?376 00.00%

Average Collection size: 2114526

TypeCount
Public0
Academic286
School0
Consortium14
Special8

Size CategoryCount
[1] Under 10,0008
[2] 10,001-100,00074
[3] 100,001-250,00054
[4] 250,001-1,000,000109
[5] 1,000,001-10,000,00090
[6] over 10,000,00115



2020 Survey Results
Product: Alma Response Distribution Statistics
CategoryResponses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ModeMeanMedian
ILS Satisfaction318 1 3 7 16 41 141 88 21 77.067
ILS Functionality317 3 4 18 30 121 107 34 77.267
Print Functionality314 2 1 3 10 29 90 131 48 87.498
Electronic Functionality313 2 1 4 7 19 59 115 82 24 76.937
Company Satisfaction317 3 2 7 12 13 71 101 92 16 76.797
Support Satisfaction318 6 5 13 20 47 66 93 49 19 76.237
Support Improvement0 00.00
Company Loyalty310 7 2 1 3 7 23 35 78 93 61 87.117
Open Source Interest307 101 38 45 34 15 35 14 8 7 8 02.452

CategoryTotalYespercent
Considering new ILS322 113.42%
Considering new Interface322 195.90%
System Installed on time?322 00.00%

Average Collection size: 1445028

TypeCount
Public0
Academic274
School0
Consortium10
Special7

Size CategoryCount
[1] Under 10,0003
[2] 10,001-100,00053
[3] 100,001-250,00051
[4] 250,001-1,000,00094
[5] 1,000,001-10,000,00087
[6] over 10,000,0017



2019 Survey Results
Product: Alma Response Distribution Statistics
CategoryResponses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ModeMeanMedian
ILS Satisfaction375 7 6 10 39 70 142 79 22 76.707
ILS Functionality376 5 7 15 30 48 148 87 36 76.887
Print Functionality374 1 3 1 19 32 56 114 104 44 76.977
Electronic Functionality372 2 6 7 14 48 62 116 93 24 76.657
Company Satisfaction376 8 7 15 18 43 75 115 66 29 76.387
Support Satisfaction375 3 8 12 19 28 64 91 88 43 19 65.866
Support Improvement365 4 9 5 21 52 128 49 50 22 25 55.415
Company Loyalty371 6 7 8 8 17 51 41 92 79 62 76.607
Open Source Interest372 129 51 47 42 29 28 19 11 8 8 02.302

CategoryTotalYespercent
Considering new ILS383 143.66%
Considering new Interface383 71.83%
System Installed on time?383 34590.08%

Average Collection size: 1494019

TypeCount
Public0
Academic320
School0
Consortium12
Special6

Size CategoryCount
[1] Under 10,00010
[2] 10,001-100,00071
[3] 100,001-250,00053
[4] 250,001-1,000,000115
[5] 1,000,001-10,000,000107
[6] over 10,000,00111



2018 Survey Results
Product: Alma Response Distribution Statistics
CategoryResponses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ModeMeanMedian
ILS Satisfaction311 2 3 4 14 34 63 118 69 4 76.557
ILS Functionality310 1 1 5 14 33 57 105 81 13 76.717
Print Functionality307 1 2 5 11 24 48 99 87 30 76.947
Electronic Functionality305 2 2 6 6 14 41 46 96 79 13 76.527
Company Satisfaction310 1 5 6 13 19 35 57 91 70 13 76.337
Support Satisfaction308 2 8 13 17 20 48 70 68 50 12 65.876
Support Improvement295 3 5 7 9 38 112 42 33 30 16 55.515
Company Loyalty305 8 5 8 6 17 33 37 71 65 55 76.587
Open Source Interest304 104 51 49 22 27 20 16 8 4 3 02.091

CategoryTotalYespercent
Considering new ILS317 103.15%
Considering new Interface317 92.84%
System Installed on time?317 29191.80%

Average Collection size: 1442753

TypeCount
Public0
Academic261
School0
Consortium10
Special5

Size CategoryCount
[1] Under 10,0006
[2] 10,001-100,00059
[3] 100,001-250,00039
[4] 250,001-1,000,000101
[5] 1,000,001-10,000,00087
[6] over 10,000,0016



2017 Survey Results
Product: Alma Response Distribution Statistics
CategoryResponses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ModeMeanMedian
ILS Satisfaction253 4 5 8 27 50 107 43 9 76.587
ILS Functionality252 3 3 7 20 45 102 61 11 76.807
Print Functionality253 3 4 6 23 31 91 75 20 76.967
Electronic Functionality253 2 3 6 7 23 60 72 65 15 76.677
Company Satisfaction252 1 4 3 2 14 39 43 73 55 18 76.507
Support Satisfaction251 1 5 5 8 23 45 53 60 37 14 76.046
Support Improvement247 1 4 6 9 31 83 38 33 21 21 55.665
Company Loyalty249 5 5 5 5 11 29 25 57 57 50 76.727
Open Source Interest249 87 52 42 22 17 15 7 3 1 3 01.781

CategoryTotalYespercent
Considering new ILS260 31.15%
Considering new Interface260 41.54%
System Installed on time?260 24293.08%

Average Collection size: 1178078

TypeCount
Public0
Academic225
School0
Consortium7
Special6

Size CategoryCount
[1] Under 10,0005
[2] 10,001-100,00040
[3] 100,001-250,00039
[4] 250,001-1,000,00088
[5] 1,000,001-10,000,00073
[6] over 10,000,0011



2016 Survey Results
Product: Alma Response Distribution Statistics
CategoryResponses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ModeMeanMedian
ILS Satisfaction157 2 2 2 3 5 18 28 54 33 10 76.537
ILS Functionality157 1 1 1 7 7 12 22 51 44 11 76.707
Print Functionality157 1 1 1 4 7 13 24 42 47 17 86.857
Electronic Functionality153 3 1 2 8 12 28 37 44 18 86.807
Company Satisfaction157 3 1 2 7 8 15 28 41 38 14 76.487
Support Satisfaction156 2 2 4 10 10 13 26 46 32 11 76.277
Support Improvement152 1 2 5 5 17 45 21 23 17 16 55.846
Company Loyalty155 4 3 1 2 8 16 15 34 32 40 96.887
Open Source Interest155 72 29 24 9 9 7 1 3 1 01.361

CategoryTotalYespercent
Considering new ILS161 42.48%
Considering new Interface161 53.11%
System Installed on time?161 15193.79%

Average Collection size: 1375159

TypeCount
Public0
Academic138
School0
Consortium4
Special2

Size CategoryCount
[1] Under 10,0007
[2] 10,001-100,00016
[3] 100,001-250,00027
[4] 250,001-1,000,00054
[5] 1,000,001-10,000,00049
[6] over 10,000,0011


Statistics according to type and size categories

The following table presents the 2015 results according to the type and size of the library.

AlmaallAcademicPublicSchoolConsortium
smallmediumlargesmallmediumlarge
navgnavgnavgnavgnavgnavgnavgnavgnavg
SatisfactionLevelILS876.37 116.36296.34316.6100002
ILSFunctionality876.37 117.00296.45316.4800002
PrintFunctionality866.74 116.82296.93316.9000002
ElectronicFunctionality866.88 117.09297.03316.8700002
SatisfactionCustomerSupport876.26 116.36296.17316.5800002
CompanyLoyalty836.94 106.10276.93317.3500002



2015 Survey Results
Product: Alma Response Distribution Statistics
CategoryResponses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ModeMeanMedian
ILS Satisfaction87 1 1 4 3 9 22 26 21 76.377
ILS Functionality87 1 2 2 3 9 23 29 17 1 76.377
Print Functionality86 1 1 1 4 6 17 28 22 6 76.747
Electronic Functionality86 1 2 2 3 18 30 22 8 76.887
Company Satisfaction87 1 1 1 3 1 12 15 23 22 8 76.617
Support Satisfaction87 1 1 3 2 5 15 11 28 14 7 76.267
Support Improvement84 2 2 1 10 20 10 15 16 8 56.066
Company Loyalty83 1 2 3 6 6 5 20 21 19 86.947
Open Source Interest85 32 17 14 7 5 3 3 4 01.731

CategoryTotalYespercent
Considering new ILS88 22.27%
Considering new Interface88 11.14%
System Installed on time?88 7989.77%

Average Collection size: 1924546

TypeCount
Public0
Academic74
School0
Consortium2
Special2

Size CategoryCount
[1] Under 10,0003
[2] 10,001-100,0009
[3] 100,001-250,0007
[4] 250,001-1,000,00032
[5] 1,000,001-10,000,00033
[6] over 10,000,0012



2014 Survey Results
Product: Alma Response Distribution Statistics
CategoryResponses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ModeMeanMedian
ILS Satisfaction46 2 1 1 4 11 17 10 76.437
ILS Functionality46 1 1 3 6 17 13 4 1 66.096
Print Functionality46 1 3 4 14 9 13 2 66.597
Electronic Functionality46 1 1 1 4 12 10 14 3 86.747
Company Satisfaction46 2 1 3 2 5 19 9 5 76.677
Support Satisfaction46 1 2 1 4 11 20 5 2 76.337
Support Improvement44 1 2 1 4 9 8 5 9 5 56.096
Company Loyalty45 1 1 2 6 2 11 13 9 86.967
Open Source Interest44 18 7 11 2 3 3 01.411

CategoryTotalYespercent
Considering new ILS46 24.35%
Considering new Interface46 12.17%
System Installed on time?46 4291.30%

Average Collection size: 2463832

TypeCount
Public0
Academic40
School0
Consortium1
Special1

Size CategoryCount
[1] Under 10,0000
[2] 10,001-100,0001
[3] 100,001-250,0007
[4] 250,001-1,000,00016
[5] 1,000,001-10,000,00020
[6] over 10,000,0011



2013 Survey Results
Product: Alma Response Distribution Statistics
CategoryResponses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ModeMeanMedian
ILS Satisfaction15 1 1 2 1 6 4 76.207
ILS Functionality15 1 1 1 3 4 4 1 65.336
Print Functionality15 1 1 2 2 3 4 2 86.407
Electronic Functionality15 1 1 1 2 2 3 3 2 76.007
Company Satisfaction15 1 1 1 7 3 2 76.807
Support Satisfaction15 1 3 1 5 4 1 76.737
Support Improvement15 1 5 1 4 4 56.337
Company Loyalty16 1 1 4 6 4 87.318
Open Source Interest17 9 2 1 1 3 1 01.880

CategoryTotalYespercent
Considering new ILS18 316.67%
Considering new Interface18 15.56%
System Installed on time?18 1794.44%

Average Collection size: 1468604

TypeCount
Public0
Academic16
School0
Consortium0
Special0

Size CategoryCount
[1] Under 10,0001
[2] 10,001-100,0000
[3] 100,001-250,0000
[4] 250,001-1,000,0009
[5] 1,000,001-10,000,0006
[6] over 10,000,0010



2012 Survey Results
Product: Alma Response Distribution Statistics
CategoryResponses 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 ModeMeanMedian
ILS Satisfaction7 1 1 2 2 1 44.864
ILS Functionality7 1 1 1 1 3 74.865
Print Functionality0 00.00
Electronic Functionality0 00.00
Company Satisfaction7 1 1 1 2 2 87.148
Support Satisfaction7 1 1 1 1 1 2 96.147
Support Improvement7 1 1 2 2 1 76.867
Company Loyalty7 2 1 4 96.439
Open Source Interest7 3 1 1 1 1 02.291

CategoryTotalYespercent
Considering new ILS8 225.00%
Considering new Interface8 112.50%
System Installed on time?8 787.50%

Average Collection size: 1033620

TypeCount
Public0
Academic6
School0
Consortium0
Special0

Size CategoryCount
[1] Under 10,0002
[2] 10,001-100,0000
[3] 100,001-250,0000
[4] 250,001-1,000,0003
[5] 1,000,001-10,000,0003
[6] over 10,000,0010


1 Responses for Alma in 2011

0 Responses for Alma in 2010

0 Responses for Alma in 2009

0 Responses for Alma in 2008

0 Responses for Alma in 2007

2022 : gen: 7.02 company 6.52 loyalty 6.87 support 6.02

2021 : gen: 6.83 company 6.55 loyalty 6.76 support 6.14

2020 : gen: 7.06 company 6.79 loyalty 7.11 support 6.23

2019 : gen: 6.70 company 6.38 loyalty 6.60 support 5.86

2018 : gen: 6.55 company 6.33 loyalty 6.58 support 5.87

2017 : gen: 6.58 company 6.50 loyalty 6.72 support 6.04

2016 : gen: 6.53 company 6.48 loyalty 6.88 support 6.27

2015 : gen: 6.37 company 6.61 loyalty 6.94 support 6.26

2014 : gen: 6.43 company 6.67 loyalty 6.96 support 6.33

2013 : gen: 6.20 company 6.80 loyalty 7.31 support 6.73

2012 : gen: 4.86 company 7.14 loyalty 6.43 support 6.14

Comments

We just moved from our own ILS to Alma and Primo from Ex Libris (Type: Consortium)

Alma still has room for improvement, however Ex Libris' aggressive monthly update schedule is closing the gap at a good pace. If they keep this up, it's unlikely that another vendor will be able to match Alma any time soon. (Type: Academic)

We have only recently migrated to ExLibris (August 2015) from Capita's Alto and Prism. (Type: Academic)

We go live in January 2016. While Ex Libris keeps our cohort on a rigorous schedule of weekly phone calls, team meetings, checklists, on-site training session over 3 days, there is much assumed and many gaps that cause the learning curve to be quite steep. All in all, personnel are pleased with the future of this system and changes in workflow. (Type: Academic)

We were told that the new library services platform would be responsive to our university libraries' peculiar and difficult configuration. This has not been exactly the case. We are often told that we should do things another way and not the way we want to do them. We are also reminded regularly that even the changes the vendor agrees to make cause the vendor inconvenience, and that we should change our procedures to align with the technology. The vendor has actually been responsive and we are, for the most part, happy with our system. But we don't like being told that we're not doing things right, from the vendor's point of view. (Type: Academic)

Count includes: print volumes; e-journals, and institutional repositories. (Type: Academic)

Note on number of items - this is items, not titles. Don't think we were able to count e-items previously, hence wild increase. (Type: Academic)

Automatically getting monthly releases is very easy and nice. It is always exciting to discover each month new functionalities and services with so little additional work required from library staff. (Type: Academic)

Note - we now are Alma / Primo customer. (Type: Academic)

We are happy with Ex Libris as a company. Over the last few years they have done a lot to streamline their customer support. Their product development is agile with new functionality released regularly. They're progressive, constantly anticipating future trends in library services. Ex Libris seems to put a lot of resources into R&D - hopefully that will continue under the new Proquest management. (Type: Academic)

customer support was better as we only very recently went back to normal support after implementation, implementation support is very responsive (Type: Academic)

Now that we are out of implementation, we receive slower and less useful support particularly in terms of needed new system development. ExL has several different paths of allowing customers to request new functionality, and they appear to make decisions not holistically but in terms of what's easiest for them to code (without testing the impact of the change system-wide), with a layer of "what's most popular". They have a (mostly) great team of support folks, but it is clear that they are overworked and not in the loop about new developments. (Type: Academic)

Alma is very advanced and is, for the most part, easy to navigate after set up. The discovery interface, Primo, with Alma leaves MUCH to be desired. Ex Libris cannot even explain with any detail how Primo ranks the results. Our subject librarians do not use it and do not train to it. They go directly to the databases. Very disappointing. (Type: Academic)

Alma implementation was a nightmare. Some of it was our fault, but Ex Libris' dealing with us has been very unimpressive, and Salesforce has been, as one employee said: Salesforce has been useless (Type: Theology)

There have been some significant Alma improvements in 2016. Monthly releases are challenging for customers, but new product features included: improvements to automated bibliographic record loading; better integration of Alma with external resource sharing systems, such as ILLiad; and, full migration of Alma APIs to REST.

Support appears to be badly understaffed, both the first-line and more specialized support staff. *This seems to have worsened as Alma’s traction in the library market has increased.* Ex Libris cites Support KPIs in arguing that Support is properly staffed, but ExL leadership's understanding doesn’t match the on-the-ground customer experience.

Development is based at the company's Israel headquarters and its visibility to North American customers is very limited. Likewise, Ex Libris has been opaque in its asserted efforts to improve Alma usability for staff. The Ex Libris user groups appear uninformed about this work, which will supposedly be reflected in production Alma in 2016.

To see Ex Libris dedicate major resources to its campusM mobile solution while there are so many basic problems with its emerging management services product, Alma, is disconcerting. There are few real synergies between campusM (institution-level) and the library solutions sold by Ex Libris.

Both the company and Alma have significant momentum in the marketplace. The impact of the expected merger with ProQuest is unclear. I hope that the merger results in Ex Libris becoming a more open company. (Type: Consortium)

Alma is still a very young product, but is continually improving with rapid monthly releases. (Type: State)

Overall, the customer support received from ExLibris has improved this year over last and most issues have been resolved in a timely manner. The fact that they keep improving on customer support is a real benefit. As we are not in the market to migrate to a new ILS, we are uninterested in exploring Open Source options at this time, but might be interested if the landscape were more mature in that arena. (Type: Academic)

The [...] launched Alma on the 21st of November 2015. Therefore, the evaluation is primarely based on first impressions of the system. (Type: Academic)

We do not have adequate IT support to consider an open source system. (Type: Academic)

We switched to ALMA this year. It is never connected, goes offline constantly, does not provide reports, is difficult to use, is not flexible, and seems to have been rolled out years before it should have been. Many features were lost in the change from Aleph to Alma, and library no longer has control over functions. (Type: Special)

We only went live with Alma in July, so haven't really had enough time to form a fair estimate of the company's product support since implementation. So far the support level feels about the same as with our previous LMS - Capita Alto. (Type: Academic)

The product is new, complex and constantly evolving (Type: Academic)

The Library has only been using its current ILS for 13 months so relatively speaking it is still early days, however the system does not meet a good number of our requirements, and performance is unreliable. System upgrades frequently result in loss of function, and it can be time consuming to have these restored. (Type: Academic)

Clearly, with the transfer of ownership to ProQuest, the future remains to be seen. Early indications are positive, but actual experiences will matter more. Overall, we remain very pleased with the product and company and our issues will likely be addressed as the product matures. (Type: Academic)

Ex Libris is the only company with vision and understanding of the full range of needs of academic libraries. Alma is realizing its potential, especially for the management of e-resources and Primo is improving as the discovery interface for Alma. The other systems out there are poor seconds to Alma/Primo - really just rewrites of older systems. We no longer really care about print management as much but concentrate on the e-resource functionality for our patrons. (Type: )

Alma and Primo integrate reasonably well. However, the back office interface of Primo and the logic behind the relationship b/n Alma and Primo is not always clear. Ex Libris could do a much better job, not only with the Primo front end interface, but with the ability for library staff to make changes to Primo in a more intuitive manner. We are also hoping for positive results from the acquisition of ExLibris by ProQuest. In particular, we hope this will improve the knowledge base inherent in the Alma Community Zone and Primo Central. (Type: Academic)

We migrated to Alma/Primo from Voyager/Primo in early June 2015. On the whole, we are very pleased with the systems. (Type: Academic)

We have been live with Alma since July 2013, and is now very much business as usual. We are now shifting focus to look at - UX testing of our discovery interface (Primo) - improving the efficiency of Library processes through LEAN and more automated integrations - make better use of data; data driven decisions in Collections Development - making use of mobile tech; e.g. checking out a book via your Smartphone Ex Libris have generally been supportive and offered involvement in all of the above, which is beneficial. (Type: Academic)

The University of [...] consortium went live with Alma in May of 2015 and used that opportunity to create a centralized bibliographic repository within Alma network zone. Hence the total number of items listed above increased from 7.8 million (roughly the size of [...] ) to 13 million system wide (this is before any deduplication. We view Alma as an immature product with great potential. Basic functionality is fairly solid though resource sharing of materials across the consortium is labor intensive and wrought with problems. Analytics and the ability to generate custom reports or otherwise assess data is very poorly developed at this time. (Type: Academic)

ILS