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Alma Fulfillment Resource Guide

This guide covers all aspects of the fulfillment process. This includes maintaining all patron records, loaning materials, returning/renewing loaned materials, managing lost items dealing with fines and fees as well as course reserves.

CDL - Controlled Digital Lending

CDL - Controlled Digital Lending

Controlled Digital Lending as it pertains to libraries is an idea that is laid out in the whitepaper linked below:

Controlled Digital Lending Whitepaper

The White paper argues that it should be lawful for a library who owns a copy of a title to lend that title digitally on a one to one basis, meaning, if the item is being loaned digitally, the physical copy is inaccessible for lending and visa versa. Further, the digital copy should not be downloadable by the patron and only those persons associated with the library that owns the physical copy should be able to access it. 

Controlled Digital Lending as described in the whitepaper above is not established law and the lawsuit that most recently tested this argument, Hatchette v. Internet Archive, was decided in favor of the publishers on March 24th, 2023.  Internet Archive says that they will appeal. Any library that would like to pursue CDL with works still under copyright should consult with their institution's legal team before doing so. 

Opinion and Order on Hachette v. Internet Archive

More information on Copyright from the Digital Services and OER Libguide can be found here including the slides from the Controlled Digital Lending (CDL): Past, Present, and Future presentation on April 25, 2023: 

Copyright Education and Information

All that said, it is possible to create digital representations in Alma and have them findable and viewable in Primo. This might be good for titles that are in the public domain. 

CDL in Alma

CDL in Alma

The best overview of a CDL workflow in Alma is one presented by Jenna Miller, Santa Fe College, for the UISC. 

The basic workflow is:

  1. Pull the item you wish to digitize
  2. Digitize the item
  3. Update the physical item record to a non accessible and possibly suppressed location
  4. Keep the item stored
  5. Create a digital collection Alma
  6. Add a digital representation of your digitized title to the collection

It is highly suggested to add an Access Rule to the digital representation if you are digitizing something within copyright - this is what would put it within the realm of CDL. If you have administrator rights you can do this yourself, Jenna does a great job at detailing this.  If not you can submit a ticket to the help desk to have them created for you. 

An Access Rule can:

  • limit the representation to logged in users or to users that have a particular user group 
  • limit the number of concurrent users
  • limit the amount of time each user can "check out" the representation in minutes for short term loans and days for long term loans
  • prevent the user from downloading the file
  • allow for a waitlist - if the title can only be viewed by one person at a time the waitlist will allow others to queue and receive an email when the item is ready for them.

It is also possible to add a copyright statement.