Optimize Your Library’s Impact
Achieve greater success for your library and users with a proven, flexible and unified library services platform. You and your library will operate more efficiently, surpass patron expectations, and exceed institutional goals with Alma.
Alma
Alma
Our customer stories
"the implementation discussions with the Ex Libris team, we engaged in direct conversations about how to adapt existing tasks to the new system and streamline our workflows"
Library Staff National Kaohsiung University of Hospitality and Tourism
"The number of registered users since the launch of Alma and Primo has increased by almost 20,000 - it's great!"
Jaroslav Sivák Charles University
“Sourcing and filling each request in Rapido takes few steps compared to the multiple steps involved with our old system”
Roshan Thapa Charles Sturt University
"Having an open solution is important because it allows us to connect all of our systems to other systems across campus."
Eduardo Prieto University of Miami
"The last Alma release is very exciting. It's a major milestone for Ex Libris in the Linked Data development."
Xiaoli Li University of California, Davis
"When we migrated to Alma in 2018, one of our goals was to have one system to manage everything."
Jamen McGranahan Vanderbilt University
“We wanted a system that could handle the complex nature of our consortia.”
Wendy Ellis Florida Virtual Campus Library Services
"Alma benefits me in all aspects of e-resource management."
Danielle Ostendorf Colorado School of Mines
“[Rapido] makes the process as seamless as accessing items in the library’s own collection.”
Jennifer Young East Tennessee State University
“We were looking for certain requirements and Alma met all those criteria.”
Van Duong Royal Melbourne Hospital
“It’s much easier to manage the content and troubleshoot errors, with everything in one system and CZ updates coming every week.”
Elizabeth York Rutgers University
"...I can't imagine life or work without Alma. Too many things have changed...When we wanted to trigger the shift from print to electronic and digital, we did that with Alma."
Gijs Noels LIBIS
"The unique full integration with Alma allows people to serendipitously find our content while searching the catalogue."
Alison Harvey Cardiff University
"I don't think we would have been able to do a lot of the things that we've done without that type of customization framework."
Allen Jones The New School Library and Archives
"Creating a seamless experience where we take analytics and the actions in Alma and turn them into one."
Raphael Gabbay Ex Libris, Part of Clarivate
"Alma lets us get materials out so much faster and so much easier"
Matthew Farthing Washtenaw Community College
“It has been a really big shift.. yet this was the smoothest implementation I’ve ever been through.”
Jane Davis Linda Hall Library
"Linked Data is a new technology and this is an important next step in the future of libraries."
Itai Veltzman Ex Libris, Part of Clarivate
"The features that excite me most about Alma are automated holdings, Alma Analytics, and the quarterly releases of new functionality."
Charlie Remy Dartmouth Library
"Our goal is to make the network open to any library using any integrated library system"
Katie Birch Ex Libris, part of Clarivate
“A small library can use Alma effectively and efficiently.”
Karen WaitE Spokane Community College
"My favorite thing in Alma is analytics, it's so powerful, it really helps me with assessment and figuring out how we want to change our services..."
Christina Hennessey California State University - Northridge
“Our continuously expanding knowledge of the new system allows us to improve our workflows, everyday IT skills, and user experience."
Sara Melchior, Art Library Manager documenta archiv
Explore how SBART improves user experience and increases visibility using Alma & Primo
SBART
"When you take a look at Alma and what Alma can do and how that can be restructured that can open your mind to new possibilities."
Julie Kane Washington & Lee University
"The University of Siena decided to go live with Alma, joining other universities in our region."
Guido Badalamenti The University of Siena
“Together with all of my colleagues in the network, and of course with the help of Ex Libris, we overcame all problems"
Wolfgang Hamedinger OBVSG
"We've been able to do a lot of streamlined workflows with the same amount of staff, and we really appreciated working with the tools."
Pascal Calarco University of Windsor
“We have the best possible relationship with Ex Libris, as we share exactly the same objective - creating valued services for our faculty.”
Ming-Jiu Hwang National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University
"Collaboration with Ex Libris has been a journey of true partnership, which we hope will continue into the future."
Thomas Marty The Swiss Library Service Platform
“This API is exactly what we were hoping for ever since we migrated to Alma.”
Brian Yost Hope College
"Alma Analytics help highlight the value of the library's collections."
Simon Huggard Swinburne University
“The list of things we like about Alma is quite long – and getting longer, as we still have more to discover."
Bas Vat Leiden University
"What I really enjoy is the worldwide community. It makes you aware that even as a small library you are not alone.“
Christian Kieslinger University of Applied Sciences St. Pölten
“We were given a very good hand from Ex Libris project management and then we managed the migration well.”
Falk Hartwig The Nuremberg University of Music
"Thanks to the Alma Community Zone, we could activate or deactivate sections of our ebook inventory at any time."
Bettina Kaldenberg Library of the University of Mannheim
“The ability to coherently manage these various constellations of licenses and patron types was one of the reasons we selected Alma."
Knut Bøckman The Royal Danish Library
"Thanks to the possibilities provided by APIs, Alma is well prepared for the future.”
Leon Krauthausen, System Librarian Freie Universität Berlin
“Ex Libris solutions helped us broaden the use of technology within the library and provide innovative learning experiences for our students.”
Dr. Brandon A. Owens Fisk University
"Ex Libris Alma checks off all the boxes to meet our needs and leaves us with a lot of room for growth in the future."
Judith Drescher Molloy College
"The Alma platform has proven to be an excellent library system, smoothly integrating with other university systems."
Dalia Mendelsson Hebrew University of Jerusalem
"Alma has provided a different vision of the future of health libraries, allowing us to explore services beyond what we’ve previously considered."
Chris Parker The Prince Charles Hospital Library
"The Alma-based workflow is quick and efficient, from licensing all the way to getting the right content into the hands of our students."
Sarah Falls University of North Carolina School of the Arts
“Alma has made it possible for us to adapt our services and workflows so that we can operate effectively in an online environment."
Jane Saunders University of Leeds
"When you take a look at what Alma can do, and how that can be restructured, that can open your mind for new possibilities for your entire work life."
Julie Kane Washington and Lee University
"The library with the largest collection in Australia needed to streamline integration for accurate archival management."
Lynne Billington State Library of New South Wales
“Find out why an academic library at a specialist college transformed its services and operations through Alma, Primo and Leganto."
Laura Pilsel Harper Adams University
Unifying systems and workflows with Alma at the Library of Ara Institute of Canterbury
Claire Brocklehurst Ara Institutue of Canterbury
Supporting the Imperial College Library Mission with Ex Libris Higher-Ed Cloud Solutions
Katherine Rose, Katharine Thompson, James Garry Imperial College, London
Alma for Digital Resources Provides Critical Digital-Based Access at the University of Liège
François Renaville, Paul Thirion, Fabienne Prosmans, Stéphanie Simon University of Liège
Alma as Part of a Strategy to Become an International-Level Institution
Celine Qiu Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech)
University of Mpumalanga Brings Together Two Academic Libraries with Alma
Zanele Mathe University of Mpumalanga
Alma & Summon at Johnson County Community College
Michael Frisbie Johnson County Community College
Demonstrating and Deepening the Library's Value with Ex Libris Higher-Ed Solutions
Helen Woolfries Kingston University London
Alma at California State University: A Consolidation of Efficiency and Savings
Jessica Hartwigsen California State University
A Fulfillment Round Table: Invisible Convenience
Brian Thompson & Todd Vandenbark University of Iowa & Wartburg College
A Resource Sharing Round Table: How Macquarie University is Streamlining Interlibrary Loan
Tony L.H. Wai
Annette Schryver
Jim Kelly
Matthew Pinson
Macquarie University
Streamlining Researcher Access to Funding
Ryan Champagne Director of Systemwide Digital Library Services, California State University
Alma at the University of Wisconsin: The New UX and Consortium Collaboration
Crystal Buss Head of Access Services, University of Wisconsin
Our team of experts looks forward to hearing from you
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Alma’s Latest News & Blog
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Institutions using Alma
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2024 New Enhancements and Features
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Cloud Apps and Extensions
Ex Libris Webinars
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What’s New with Summon – May 2025
Join our live webinar to catch up on recent and upcoming Summon updates. Hear from Product Management, ask questions, and share feedback!
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Managing Electronic Resources ERM-301 Usage Statistics, COUN...
This session focuses on review exercises, background on usage statistics, upload COUNTER reports, and set up SUSHI harvesting
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Linked Data Enrichment (Part of the 2025 Roadmap Webinar Ser...
During this session we will show the ability to enrich records with Linked Data both "On the fly" and "Permanently".
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Managing Electronic Resources ERM-302 Analytics of E-Resourc...
This session focuses on review exercises, using Alma analytics, default ERM reports and dashboards, creating new reports, and overlap of print vs. electronic resources.
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Primo Next Discovery Experience (NDE) (Part of the 2025 Road...
The Next Discovery Experience (NDE) vision for the coming years is set to enhance the way academic research is conducted, ushering in a new era of research efficiency and insight.
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Library community at work: Developing custom AI workflows fo...
Curious about real-world AI applications in libraries? Join us to learn directly from teams building custom solutions and putting these tools into practice.
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Managing Electronic Resources ERM Bonus 1 Contribute to the ...
This session focuses on review exercises, goals and responsibilities of contributing, edit CZ bib records, contribute local e-resource portfolios to the CZ, contribute local e-reso...
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Managing Electronic Resources ERM Bonus 2 Upload Electronic ...
This session focuses on overview and workflow, activate the Collection in CZ/IZ, create a ProQuest Ebook Central integration profile, define the purchase model, record a purchase o...
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Enhancing Alma metadata from non- MARC data sources
"Enhancing metadata is a continuous effort that the Ex Libris Content Operations team actively expands and explores.
Join us in this session to discover how Ex Libris leverages no...
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Managing Electronic Resources ERM-203 Overlap Analysis
This session focuses on review exercises, purpose and use-cases, compare a CZ collection to all of IZ, compare an IZ collection to all of IZ, and compare a list of titles to all of...
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Managing Electronic Resources ERM-202 Troubleshoot Discovery
This session will contain a step-by-step process to troubleshoot linking issues in your discovery service, to see how the following sources can cause broken links: inactive service...
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Managing Electronic Resources ERM-201 Maintain E-Resources
This session focuses on review exercises, bulk changes to portfolios, portfolio editor, update selective packages, portfolio loader, import profile, and deactivate or delete resour...
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Managing Electronic Resources ERM-103 Order and Activate Por...
This session focuses on review exercises, general ordering and activating workflow, order subscription portfolio from Community Zone, activate single portfolio, view activated reso...
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Managing Electronic Resources ERM-102 Order and Activate Col...
This session focuses on general ordering and activation workflow, order one-time collection from Community Zone, order subscription collection from Community Zone, activate collect...
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Managing Electronic Resources ERM-101 Overview and Backgroun...
This session focuses on Alma's inventory model and terminology for e-resources, types of electronic portfolios, and user roles for managing e-resources
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More about Alma
Our Services
All the Ex Libris consultants, trainers and experienced developers partner with you to tailor your solutions.
Cloud
Services
Services
Our revolutionary cloud services deliver exceptional reliability and the highest levels of security and data privacy across all institutional data, systems and processes.
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Content
Services
Services
We continuously grow and innovate our content services to support discovery and provide easy access to relevant information, optimizing every aspect of the research and learning experience.
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Professional
Services
Services
Our best-in-class professional services provided by our global teams ensure on-time and on-budget project implementation and we are with you every step of the way with on-going advice, training, and support.
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Support
Services
Services
We are committed to ensuring a high level of satisfaction among our customers. Our dedicated support services team attends to your specific configurations and needs on time, every time.
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Calculate your savingsFAQ
A Library Management System, or LMS, like Alma, encompasses a suite of functionalities aimed at managing library operations efficiently. It often includes features such as cataloging and classification for organizing materials, search and discovery tools for easy access to library resources, digital resource management for overseeing online collections, reporting and analytics for informed decision-making, and integration with other library systems and platforms for seamless workflow coordination.
The primary objective of a Library Management System for universities is to efficiently manage library resources and services to support teaching, learning, and research activities. Simplifying tasks like cataloging materials, facilitating circulation, providing easy access to resources, enabling data-driven decision-making, integrating with other university systems, optimizing resource allocation, and ensuring compliance and security. Ultimately, the goal is to enhance the overall academic experience for students, faculty, and researchers by providing convenient access to a wealth of scholarly resources and efficient library services.
Alma centralizes management of print, electronic and digital materials, by unifying the management of ALL library resources. It simplifies all library management activities through a single unified interface, helping staff eliminate time-consuming manual processes and a complex patchwork of siloed systems. Alma automates routine library services and management processes, with intelligent automation streamlining workflows.
Alma Analytics was developed together with Alma from the very beginning. The Analytics tool is deployed on the Oracle Analytics Server, the top-of the line tool for sophisticated, but easy-to-use analytics. Alma Analytics provides insightful and actionable insights for librarians, is an integral part of the Alma solution and is included in a subscription.
Alma, along with Primo library discovery service, are seamlessly connected through a unified backend and deliver a single-point of administration. You and your staff can manage acquisition, activation, and fulfillment with unified workflows and the results are published to the discovery system in real-time. Critical content is immediately discoverable and processes are simplified, reducing time spent on setup, configuration, data updates, and more.
No. Alma does not require specialized expertise in order to start using it. The solution is both intuitive and focused on user experience, with context-sensitive help options throughout and read-to-go workflows for every library process.
The Alma Community Zone, an integral part of the Alma software, includes a Central KnowledgeBase (CKB) of vendor offerings for electronic resources that is maintained by Ex Libris. By integrating the CKB into the Community Zone, Alma allows libraries to eliminate the need to manually synchronize records for electronic resources into the local catalog.
Alma integrates with external systems, such as vendor systems, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, metadata management systems, and remote storage systems. It supports more than 200 APIs which are used daily by our customers in order to integrate Alma with their institutional ecosystem. Ex Libris’ Cloud Apps is an open framework that allows developers to write apps that can integrate with other systems and more.
Ex Libris provides customers a secure and reliable environment with a multi-tiered security model that covers all aspects of our cloud-based solutions and controls are based on international protocols and standards. Ex Libris has received FedRAMP Tailored Authorization and is committed to GDPR compliance. Alma is also designed to safeguard data throughout the data lifecycle including data in transit.
Alma supports different sizes and types of consortia, bringing members together! Alma supports collaborative networks – groups of institutions, such as a consortium – that share the management of metadata records and/or other Alma services, such as fulfillment, resource sharing, vendor information, or administration tables. Institutions can work together and share resources, or independently manage their own library needs.
All Ex Libris products and Alma in particular support in depth documentation – including online help, release notes, best practices and how tos, training documentation, Libguides, knowledge articles and more. All documentation is freely available and open to the world and can be found in our Learning Archive. No documentation is behind a paywall.