Ex Libris™, part of Clarivate™, has updated its extensive two-year product development plan for the unified Alma library management system for the rest of 2024 and throughout 2025. The community-driven roadmap is refreshed on a semi-annual basis to ensure that libraries are taking advantage of state-of-the-art technology, such as advancements in Linked Open Data and artificial intelligence (AI), to best manage their resources today and address future needs.
Innovation for Alma continues to present a combination of new features and enhanced functionality to help library staff manage their resources more efficiently and effectively. Some of the key development areas includes:
- Enhanced User Experience: Streamlined and intuitive interface & workflows for Title Search and Patron Services
- AI Metadata Assistant: Advanced tool for the cataloger to improve metadata accuracy and efficiency
- Robust Consortia Functionality: Improved collaboration and administration capabilities for consortia
- Workflow Simplification: More efficient processes to save time and reduce complexity.
- Linked Open Data and Authority Management: Enhanced data integration and management.
- Open Access: Support for open access initiatives and compliance.
Crucial to the Alma development are the suggestions and guidance provided by the global customer community of nearly 2700 institutional subscribers. Users can participate influence development priorities through a variety of different means, including the Ex Libris Idea Exchange, the New Enhancements Request System (NERS) run by the IGeLU and ELUNA user groups, listserv posts, product working groups, and more.
“Together, we’re taking great steps to move library resource management forward and advance all libraries in our growing, global community,” said Dana Moshkovits, Senior Director of Product Management at Ex Libris. “The collaborative process is a proven example of how everyone can contribute to help all types and sizes of libraries move forward and achieve more success.”
This forward-looking vision and execution of the roadmap results in a steady, reliable, and systematic development approach that results in quarterly new feature enhancement releases throughout the year, along with periodic maintenance and analytics updates across the remaining months. Please note the Alma roadmap offers a high-level overview, and not every planned enhancement for each quarterly release is detailed.
Contact us to learn more about the planned improvements to Alma, discover what it means to be part of the Alma community, and why Alma is the right choice to prepare your library for the future.
