The following ideas from the Idea Exchange are part of Ex Libris's 2024 roadmap:
By default, search profiles that include the Central Index scope are capable of searching all available CDI collections for your library. You can now create specialized search profiles that limit CDI searches to specific resource types (such as videos) and disciplines (such as visual arts) on the Define a Custom Search Profile screen. See these two new options:
For details, see Defining Specialized Search Scopes.
Subject terms are received in various formats and styles from providers and aggregators. To address reported issues, incoming subject terms are now mapped to a controlled vocabulary, which is based primarily on LCSH and MeSH. The outcome of this mapping is the following:
Subject field (Normalized) – This indexed field includes only subjects that match the CDI controlled vocabulary. They are deduplicated and normalized.
Keyword field – This new field includes all subjects that could not be mapped against the CDI controlled vocabulary. These subjects are considered keywords, which are also indexed and searchable.
When enabled, only the normalized subjects appear for the Subject/Topic facet and the Subject display field. When performing a search in CDI scopes, both the Subject and Keyword fields are searched to ensure that nothing is lost (since not all subjects can be mapped to the controlled vocabulary).
For more details, see Using Normalized Subject Headings from CDI.
November 2023 Enhancements
In addition to the other methods of integrating Unpaywall for discovery (such as Quicklinks), you can now activate the Unpaywall collection in the Alma Community Zone. The CDI manages and prioritizes Open Access (OA) full text links for Unpaywall records and displays them with the other Link in Record OA links in Primo/VE. The CDI will be updated weekly.
This is Ex Libris’s preferred integration for Unpaywall, but you can still use the other methods or multiple concurrent methods. For more details, see Integrating Unpaywall for Discovery.
| Community Zone Collection | Quicklinks |
|---|---|
| Managed by Ex Libris | Managed by ThirdIron |
| Links appear in View Online section | Links appear below title/author information |
| Links may lead to publisher site | One-click access directly to article |
| More content | Less content |
| Data updated twice weekly | Data updated immediately, generally within the day |
| Data source is Unpaywall, data may be less accurate | Multiple data sources, data may be more accurate |
| No special permissions required to activate | Discovery Admin permissions required |
You now have the ability to set whether searches that return no results will automatically expand the search to include CDI collections that have not been activated in Alma. In addition, users will be notified when their searches have been expanded automatically. When enabled and searches are not already expanded for CDI, the following message appears if a search in CDI first returns no results without expansion:
The notes field was removed as a default search field in CDI to reduce ranking problems caused by problematic notes metadata in some CDI records. This was a result of the following Ex Libris cases: 06273728, 06450681, 06552502.
Ex Libris has developed a new normalized Subject index that is normalized, deduped, and matched with LCSH, MeSH, and a small subset of ProQuest thesaurus terms. Although this functionality will not be shared with customers until the February 2024 release, you can test it in your November production environment by adding a parameter to your search URLs. For more details, see Using Normalized Subject Headings from CDI.
August 2023 Enhancements
Primo VE now supports the following new resource types used in CDI:
Magazine – A popular interest periodical usually containing articles on a variety of topics that are written by various authors in a non-scholarly style.
Magazine Article – A self-contained nonfiction prose composition on a fairly narrow topic or subject, which is written by one or more authors and published under a separate title in a magazine.
Questionnaire – A set of printed or written questions with a choice of answers, which is devised for the purpose of a survey or statistical study. It is used for records from the Henrietta Szold collection.
CDI document attributes provide more information about the type of record and complement the existing resource types. When enabled, they display as a flag (Regular and Warning types) in the brief and full displays of the CDI record. In addition, users can select these attributes as additional resource types in facets and search queries.
Attribute types include: Review article, primary source, preprint, retracted publication, and retraction notice. The following are planned for future releases: withdrawn publication, withdrawal notice, and publication with expression of concern. A detailed table explaining the meaning of each of these attributes can be found in the Ex Libris documentation under the header “Display Document Attributes for CDI Records.”
