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Alma DV workshop 10 July 2026 at the University of Sunderland

Creating and connecting datasets to visualise cost, use and cost-per-use in an Alma DV Dashboard

EPUG-UKI Workshop led by Michelle Halpin & Ian Frost, University of Sunderland
Date: 10th July 2026, 11:00-3:30pm
Venue: University of Sunderland, St Peter’s Campus

Register

This workshop is for Alma Analytics users who want to create automated cost-per-use collection dashboards within Alma Data Visualisation. The workshop will share tips for clean and tidy data preparation and offer you step-by-step activities to create, connect and visualise cost-per-use data insights.

Part 1 – workshop starts at 11am

1.5 hours of workshop: demo and supported practice activities

Break for one hour lunch at 12:30pm

Part 2 – workshop resumes at 1:30pm

1.5 hours of workshop: focus more on people working to make their own workflows / dashboards with trainer / peer support

Workshop ends at 3:30pm

To take part in the workshop, you’ll need to bring your own laptop device and have Alma Analytics access permissions.

Participation is free of cost and will include drinks and a light lunch.

Address:  University of Sunderland, Sir Tom Cowie Campus at St Peter’s, St Peter’s Way, Sunderland, SR6 0DD (How to get to the University of Sunderland).

There is ample car parking at the St Peter’s campus or you can take the train to Sunderland and then walk 20 minutes or take the bus to the St Peter’s campus. You could also take the train to Newcastle and then take the Metro (30 minutes) to the St Peter’s stop, and walk for 10 minutes to the Reg Vardy building.

The University is located on the River Wear, and within walking distance to the Roker seaside. So participants might consider combining this with a weekend to explore the North East.

Overhead view of the British Library St Pancras
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Spring Conference wrap-up

60 of you joined us in person and a fluctuating cast of 120-odd joined us online at the Spring Event on Monday 11 May, 2026. We covered a lot of ground on the day, starting with NDE and then moving on to topics including a bespoke tool for stock check, Leganto rollover, Alma DV, customer care and what’s coming next with Clarivate products. Surprising no one, we heard quite a lot about the role of AI throughout.

We also had a chance to chat to fellow members during the breaks and a few folks stopped into the pub before travelling onwards at the end of the day.

Thanks to everyone for making it a great day.

Following up:

  • We’ll be sending a feedback form aimed at attendees and non-attendees to find out what types of events are going to work for the community in future. Please watch your email and take a few minutes to provide your thoughts.
  • Recordings of the presentations will be available shortly via our YouTube channel. Watch the listserv and blog for an announcement of those going live.
  • The next EPUG-UKI event will likely be an in-person analytics workshop at the University of Sunderland in July. We’ll let you know when there are more details.
  • Our Autumn event will be online-only; more details forthcoming. Start brainstorming your presentations now.

Do you have an idea for another themed event, either online or in-person? Want to host something for other members in your region or nation or with a subset of Alma users in the UK & Ireland? Send an email to epuguki.secretary@gmail.com to let us know, or chat it through with colleagues on one of our monthly calls.

Aerial view of the British Library in London
Patche99z [CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D
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EPUG-UKI AGM & Spring Conference, 11 May 2026

Dear EPUG-UKI colleagues,

This year’s AGM & Spring conference event will be on Monday 11 May 2026 (9:30-4:30 GMT), and will take place in person at the British Library Knowledge Centre in London. Hybrid attendance will take place via Zoom.

Registration is now closed. Attendance is free of charge and a light lunch and hot drinks will be provided. You may register to attend via Zoom up until Friday 8 May.

There is an opportunity to submit questions for Ex Libris & Clarivate colleagues. Please do this by Friday 1 May 2026 either as part of your registration or by emailing epuguki.secretary@gmail.com.

Joining details for hybrid attendees will be mailed out nearer the conference date. The event will also be recorded and made available shortly afterwards.

EPUG-UKI Spring Event Programme, Monday 11 May 2026 (subject to change)

9:30 – 10:00Arrival and registration
10:00 – 10:30EPUG-UKI Welcome and AGM Business
Lee Houghton – EPUG UKI&I Chair
Laurence Lockton – EPUG UKI&I Treasurer

IGeLU Update
James Dodd, IGeLU Steering Committee
10:30 – 11:30Session 1: NDE

Primo working group update and using Google’s AI products to support and develop Ex Libris products
Paul Harding, University of York

NDE implementation at Nottingham Trent University
Richard Cross, Nottingham Trent University
11:30 – 12:00Session 2: Customer Service Update
Martin Buescher, Ex Libris
12:00 – 13:00Lunch  
13:00 – 14:00Session 3: Project updates

Leganto Course rollover: Testing for success
Laura MacNeil, University of Edinburgh

Developing a new Inventory Control client at Oxford Sara Burnell & Ben Gable, Bodleian Libraries
14:00 – 14:30Session 4: Ex Libris Update
Alan Oliver, Ex Libris  
14:30-14:45Short break  
14:45 – 15:45Session 5: Connected Cost and Usage Data Workflows in Alma Data Visualization
Michelle Halpin, University of Sunderland
15:45-16:15Session 6: Ex Libris Q&A / Discussion
Martin Buescher & Allan Oliver, Ex Libris
16:15 – 16:30Close
Lee Houghton – EPUG UK&I Chair
EPUG UKI May 2026 event programmeDownload

Leah Emary
EPUG-UKI Secretary, on behalf of the Committee

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Spring Event – call for participation

We will be holding our Spring conference this year on Monday 11 May 2026 from 10:00AM – 4:30 PM at the British Library Knowledge Centre in St Pancras, London. All sessions will be streamed live via Zoom.

Member feedback on the question of in-person vs online attendance remains mixed, particularly as budgets continue to be strained. Going forward, we intend to offer at least one in-person event per year and one online-only. We plan to offer regional get-togethers and other themed days, like the recent eResources day in Salford.

Call for speakers

We are also looking for speakers from our members! Please get in touch with epuguki.secretary@gmail.com by 5pm on Monday 2 March 2026 if you’d like to present in May. This can be on any aspect of Ex Libris products or systems such as:

  • Alma, Primo (NDE/VE/BO), Leganto, Rialto, Rapido, Rapid ILL
  • Recent system implementations, migrations, or integrations with external systems
  • Projects reviewing workflows within the Ex Libris systems
  • New features you’ve recently enabled or tested
  • User engagement/UX studies
  • Innovative use of systems, features, or data e.g. analytics, Linked Open Data, AI

Presentations can be between 20-45 mins in length (please specify the preferred length of your presentation) and new/first-time presenters are welcome. Creative suggestions for networking, social events, workshops, or other ideas are also welcome.

Speakers’ travel to and from London from locations in the UK and Ireland as well as accommodation can be reimbursed by EPUG-UKI.

We hope to open registration with a draft programme at the beginning of March.

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Presentation by Meni Toboul from EPUG-UKI Exchange of Experience January 2026

On 15 January 2026,  Martin Buescher (Customer Care Director) and Meni Toboul (Sr. Director Cloud) from Clarivate joined the monthly EPUG-UKI Experience Exchange call to respond to feedback on the system issues experienced by many members in September-October 2025.

Here is a copy of Meni’s presentation.

Cloud StabilityDownload

With many thanks to Chris Jones and Trudy Gamblin for collating member feedback and compiling the report.

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EPUG Spring Conference 2026 Monday 11 May 2026, British Library Knowledge Centre

Dear EPUG-UKI colleagues,

Plans are underway for the EPUG-UKI Spring event which will be held at the British Library Knowledge Centre in St Pancras London on Monday 11 May 2026. This event will be held in-person, though portions of the day will be recorded.

Further details, a call for speakers and a registration link will be forthcoming. If you have ideas of what you would like to see at the conference or if you would like to lead a workshop or session, please email epuguki.secretary@gmail.com.

Leah Emary
EPUG-UKI Secretary, on behalf of the Committee

epuguki

EPUG-UKI Autumn Conference (6th and 7th October 2025) session recordings

The recordings from this year’s Autumn Conference, held remotely via Zoom, are available below and via YouTube.

Day 1: Monday 6th October 2025

EPUG-UKI Welcome and Committee Business

Lee Houghton (EPUG-UKI Chair)
Laurence Lockton (EPUG-UKI Treasurer

United by RapidILL: Sharing Content and Building Community in UK Libraries

Kip Darling (Birmingham City University)

Feedback from Content Day in Salford (20th May)

Lee Houghton (EPUG-UKI Chair)
Tamar Ganor (Content Product Manager, Clarivate)

Alma implementation at the British Library

Chris Martyn (British Library)

LapSafe and Alma integration

Sarah Pumfrey (Liverpool John Moores University)

Day 2: Tuesday 7th October

Ex Libris Clarivate Updates

Alan Oliver (Clarivate)

Customer Care Update

Martin Buescher (Clarivate)

Discussion of INUG Report and Clarivate Q&A

Primo search scopes review: preparing for the NDE

Uchechukwu Aghedo (Birmingham City University)

IGeLU 2025 Siena – conference reflections

Kip Darling (Birmingham City University & RapidILL Working Group)

Requesting for Dummies: better offsite requesting through dummy desks, webhooks and the Alma API

Ben Gable & Duncan Jones (University of Oxford)

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Recording now available: Alma acquisitions exchange of experience Sept 2025 (Alma/Oracle Integration from University of Derby)

The recording of the latest Alma acquisitions exchange of experience for EPUG members is now available:

Adam Robinson, who is the head of Academic Services, and Heather Cripps, who is the Content Delivery Officer at Derby, talked to EPUG-UKI about the successful integration between Alma and Oracle.

The Content and Digital Services team within the Library at the University of Derby are one of the first teams within the UK HE sector to implement an integration between the Library Management System (Alma) and the University finance system (Oracle). This innovative piece of work has enabled the team to save valuable staff time on double entry in both systems, minimise reconciliation activity between systems, and enhance accuracy within expenditure tracking and streamline the budgeting reporting process. The Alma-Oracle project involved collaboration across departments at the University, including Finance and I.T teams, and was spearheaded by the Library. This work was challenging and took considerable time and effort to come to fruition. Significant time was spent analysing return on investment, communicating and explaining complex acquisition workflows and financial procedures.

The Library team at Derby have confidence that the financial information within Alma is reflective of the information contained within the University Finance system, and staff are able to focus their efforts in other priority activities.

With thanks to Kevin O’Donovan from LSE for organising the topic and speaker.