ALMA is a staff-facing online service for selecting, activating, purchasing, describing, tracking and circulating physical and electronic materials for the Syracuse University Libraries. It was created by and is operated by the ExLibris division of Clarivate.
Staff connect to it at either of these links:
Login via NetID credentials is required. The credentials can be forwarded from the MicroSoft login for computers on campus.
Primo VE is a patron-facing online service for discovering, locating, and connecting to resources held by Syracuse University Libraries, or available as Open Source resources. Patrons can access Primo at
This site is unrestricted, open to the world without login. Some features do work better after the patron has logged in, however. Login requires a university NetID or the combination of email address and password - the latter primarily for guests and recent alumni.
ExLibris provides a page where we can view the current "health" of the servers running our instance of ALMA and Primo VE. This page should be consulted whenever we are experiencing significant delays or are unable to connect locally.
ExLibris hosted products status page
On the above page, consult the tab for the "Americas", lines "ALMA NA05" and "Primo VE NA05".
Information about ALMA, including training information and help pages is available at Alma - Ex Libris Knowledge Center (exlibrisgroup.com). This includes resources contributed by the user community.
Information about Primo VE is available at Primo VE (English) - Ex Libris Knowledge Center (exlibrisgroup.com) . A helpful resource for starting with Primo VE is Welcome - Primo VE - LibGuides at Ex Libris.
Advanced training in ALMA Analytics is available at Alma Analytics: Become an Expert - Ex Libris Knowledge Center.
Detailed, topic-based presentations are offered periodically, on a rolling basis, through ELUNA (Ex Libris Users of North America). Syracuse University Libraries is a member institution of ELUNA, which gives our staff fee-free enrollment at ELUNA Learns.
When encountering a problem, it may be useful to consult the ALMA known problems list
Documented practices from peer institutions can be instrumental in decision making. A sampling follows:
We have an implementation of the ALMA Circulation Inventory check created for Georgetown University running locally.
Certain functions are beyond the scope of ALMA or Primo products themselves, but might be accomplished through use of add-on web apps created by other Ex Libris customers, and made available through the vendor. Apps can perform nuanced functions such as formatting data in a heavily configured way for spine labels or bibliographies, or to retrieve data for use by other applications.
Lists of ALMA web apps and Primo extensions are available online.
ALMA apps are often available through the cloud, and can be utilized from the ALMA menus. If an app seems to fulfill a need, send a request to Library ITS. LITS will evaluate the app for suitability and security, possibly comparing it to other applications or workflow changes. All requests will be researched, and may be implemented, if suitable.