In­tro­duc­tion of a new lib­rary man­age­ment sys­tem

The library has been working with a new library management system since 1 August 2022.

On this page we will inform you about the changes associated with the system changeover.

What do you need to pay par­tic­u­lar at­ten­tion to from 1 Au­gust?

Registration in the library account after the changeover

Your password for registration in your library account is no longer valid after the changeover to the new library management system.

  • If you have entered an e-mail address in your library account, you can set a new password for registration in your library account using the "I have forgotten my password" function in the catalogue.
  • If no e-mail address is entered in your library account, you can register for the first time after the library system has been changed using your date of birth in the form DDMMYYYY as your password. For security reasons, you should change your password immediately after your first registration using the "Change password" action in your library account.

Borrowing conditions

With the system change, the extended lending regulations made in the 'Corona context' were reset to the standard settings valid before 'Corona'.

We have now realised that it is very difficult for our users to return borrowed literature on time during the holiday period.

For this reason, the extended lending regulations have been reinstated and it is intended that the default settings will not take effect until 1 November.

In concrete terms, this means

  1. You can now extend the loan periods of your borrowed media again as often as you like up to a total loan period of two years until 31 October 2022. For university employees, the loan period is automatically extended up to a total loan period of three years.
  2. From 1 November 2022, you can extend the loan periods of your borrowed media as often as you like up to a total loan period of one year. For university employees, the loan period is automatically extended up to a total loan period of two years.

Media that have been reserved by a third party are of course excluded from the loan period extension.

If you have received a request to return media in the last few days, please check whether the borrowed media can be renewed using the renewal function in your library account. The automatic renewal of loan periods for media borrowed by university employees will take place from 4 August 2022, taking into account the extended loan regulations.

Fees

  • Outstanding fees have been transferred from the old to the new library management system.
  • In the new system, fees for items not returned within the loan period will be charged to your library account as soon as the loan period is exceeded. This will be automatically blocked if your fees exceed the value of 25.00 euros.
  • You will find your fees immediately in your library account under the menu item "Fees". Da die Gebühren direkt in Ihr Bibliothekskonto geschrieben werden, fallen die folgenden Teilbeträge als Gebühren je nach Anzahl der Tage der Überschreitung der Leihfrist an:
    - ab 1. Tag der Leihfristüberschreitung für jedes Medium: 2,00 Euro,
    - ab 11.
    - from the 21st day of the overdue loan period for each medium an additional 5.00 euros,
    - from the 31st day of the overdue loan period for each medium an additional 10.00 euros or
    - for short loans for each day and each medium 2.00 euros.

Please note:

  • After the changeover to the new library management system, the fees for interlibrary loan requests for journal articles made in the period from 26 July to 1 August, which should be billed via the library account (not via TAN), will be entered into the library account retrospectively.
  • After the changeover to the new library management system, an overview of your library account will be sent to you by e-mail once a month. The overview contains your borrowed items, any overdue items and any outstanding fees.

Interlibrary loans:

  • Media delivered via interlibrary loan will be made available for collection from the local lending desk for 14 days. We will notify you by e-mail when the items are ready for collection. If you are unable to collect your interlibrary loan items during this time and require an extension to the collection period, please contact the staff in the Interlibrary Loan and Digitisation unit.
  • The loan period for items delivered via interlibrary loan is determined by the supplying library. It is usually 30 days from the date of loan. It is not possible to extend the loan period.

Reservations:

  • All reservations existing in the old system were migrated to the new system during the system changeover, as a result of which the reservations have been given a new "order date" (29 July 2022).

Short-term restrictions directly after the changeover:

Unfortunately, not all processes can be started at the same time on this cut-off date - partly because we are dependent on partners outside Paderborn University Library, for example the University Library Centre (hbz).

  • The link resolver SFX is integrated in the new library management system ALMA and will therefore be gradually removed from the links. However, this process may take a little longer.
  • Certain features in the catalogue, e.g. searching for terms in tables of contents, can only be made available again at a later date. Further information on this can be found in the catalogue blog.

Gen­er­al in­form­a­tion about the pro­ject

The migration of the University Library to a new library management system is part of a state-wide project (GO:AL) in which all 41 university libraries in NRW, the ZB MED and the University Library Centre (hbz) in Cologne are participating and in the context of which all institutions are switching to a standardised library management system.

Under the leadership of the hbz, an EU-wide tender for a web-based library management system for the 43 institutions was issued on behalf of the NRW Ministry of Culture and Science. The contract for the Alma product was signed with Ex Libris in September 2019 and the project is being funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science.

The project schedule envisages that the new system will be introduced in three waves between March 2020 and the end of 2023. Paderborn University Library is in the second wave, for which the implementation phase began in summer 2021 and will end in autumn 2022.

Information on the GO:AL project and the Alma software from the provider Ex Libris used in the project can be found under the following links

Information on the project at Paderborn University Library: