Books and Media (https://find.library.duke.edu)
URLs for bibliographic details pages in Books & Media will have different formats depending on whether the bibliographic record was created in Aleph and migrated to Alma, or whether it was created directly in Alma.
We’ll refer to records created in Aleph and migrated to Alma as “Aleph-born”, and records created in Alma directly (after cutover on July 10th) as “Alma-born.”
Bibliographic record identifiers in Aleph
When an bib record was created in Aleph, it received a nine-digit Aleph sysid that served as the unique record identifier.
The Aleph sysid was used to create the URL in Books & Media.
For example, if an Aleph-born record was in Books & Media with the URL https://find.library.duke.edu/catalog/DUKE002109345, the last nine digits - 002109345 - are the Aleph sysID.
Migrating an Aleph-born record to Alma
In Alma, the unique record identifier for the bibliographic record is called the MMS ID.
When an Aleph-born record is migrated to Alma, the Aleph sysid is used to build the new Alma MMS ID.
The format of an Alma MMS ID for an Aleph-born record is
99 + Aleph-born sysid + 010 + 8501
99 indicates that this identifier is for a bibliographic record
010 is an identifier added to the record by the Ex Libris Aleph-to-Alma migration scripts
8501 is Duke’s Ex Libris institutional id
Example:
A bibliographic record was created in Aleph and assigned a sysid of 002109345
When that record migrated to Alma, it was assigned an Alma MMDID of 990021093450108501
Bibliographic record identifiers for Alma-born records
An Alma-born bibliographic record is assigned an MMS ID when it is created.
The format of an Alma MMS ID for an Alma-born record is
99 + unique record identifier + 8501
99 indicates that this identifier is for a bibliographic record
The unique record identifier is a 10 digit numeric string
8501 is Duke’s Ex Libris institutional ID
Books & Media (find.library.duke.edu) URLs for Aleph-born records migrated to Alma
When an Aleph-born record is exported from Alma to find.library.duke.edu, the export creates the URL that will be used in Books & Media.
To prevent library staff from needing to fix hundreds of thousands of URLs when Alma goes live, the project team decided that for Aleph-born records, they would continue to use the same Books & Media URL as they did when we were running Aleph.
Example:
An Aleph-born bibliographic record has a sysid of 006288172
When that record is migrated to Alma, it has an MMS ID of 990062881720108501
When that record is exported to Books & Media, it will live at this URL: https://find.library.duke.edu/catalog/DUKE006288172
Books & Media (http://find.library.duke.edu ) URLs for Alma-born records
For Alma-born bibliographic records, the MMS ID will become the number that is in the Books & Media URL.
Example:
An Alma-born bibliographic record has an MMS ID of 99112809063108501
When that record is exported to Books & Media, it will live at this URL: https://find.library.duke.edu/catalog/DUKE99112809063108501
Catalog Request System URLs
The URL for the catalog request system will use the same number as the URL for the Books & Media record.
Example for an Aleph-born record
An Aleph-born bibliographic record has a sysid of 006288172 and an Alma MMS ID after migration of 990062881720108501
The Books & Media URL will be https://find.library.duke.edu/catalog/DUKE006288172 and the request system URL will be requests.library.duke.edu/item/006288172
Example for an Alma-born record
An Alma-born bibliographic record has an MMS ID of 99112809063108501
The Books & Media URL will be https://find.library.duke.edu/catalog/DUKE99112809063108501 and the request system URL will be requests.library.duke.edu/item/99112809063108501
Other questions
Will we continue to use the Aleph sysid for the URL for Aleph-born records in perpetuity? It makes the URLs inconsistent.
The project adopted the approach of preserving the Aleph sysid in the Books & Media URL because we had a requirement to prevent those URLs from breaking at cutover, and limited time to implement a more complex solution for redirection. We intend to evaluate this approach after we cutover to Alma and determine the best path forward to enable all records to use the full MMS ID in the URL so that the format is consistent. There is no anticipated time frame for when that work might happen.
If we happen to use an Aleph-born record’s full MMS ID in the Books & Media URL, will that resolve to the correct Books & Media page?
This question is asking something like “If an Aleph born record has an MMS ID of 990062881720108501, will the url https://find.library.duke.edu/catalog/DUKE990062881720108501 resolve?”
The answer is no - in this case, you’d receive a “We’re sorry, your page isn’t here” 404 message.