Looking for Trouble: Using Alma Analytics To Find Problems in Your Catalog

Problems in catalog data can affect how patrons find and access your library resources. They may cause items to be misshelved or have problems circulating. They may also make your reports and analyses of metadata incomplete or misleading. By searching for different types of problems directly, we can identify and resolve many issues before they cause any more trouble, and often identify where these problems are coming from and prevent them from reoccurring. In this session, we will look at an Alma Analytics dashboard and accompanying website that can be used to find problems in catalog records (including bibliographic records, holdings, items, and portfolios), and monitor your catalog after cleanup to identify new problems as they show up. We will talk about how to use and modify these analyses to meet the needs of your library.