URLs for Discovery Systems and Requesting

Introduction

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 were used to construct Books & Media URLs

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.

How are bib identifiers in Alma constructed for Aleph-born records?

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.

Open

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 MMS ID of 990021093450108501

How are bib identifiers in Alma constructed for Alma-born records?

An Alma-born bibliographic record is assigned an MMS ID when it is created.

What format will Books & Media URLs use for Aleph-born records?

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

What format will Books & Media URLs use 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

What format will Catalog Request System URLs use for Aleph-born and Alma-born records?

The URL for the catalog request system will use the same number as the URL for the Books & Media record, for both Aleph-born and Alma-born records.

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
  
  

What part of the Alma MMS ID is unique?

The Alma MMS ID is formed of a prefix, a numeric string, and a suffix.

Alma uses prefixes in a record number to identify the record type. E.g., the ‘99’ prefix signifies a bibliographic record; ‘53’, an electronic portfolio; ‘23’, an item record.

That means that it’s important to know that the “unique string” in the MMS ID is only unique within the context of bibliographic records.

If you add the prefix, then the record number becomes unique to Duke’s instance of Alma.

If you then add the suffix that signifies Duke’s Alma install, the record number becomes unique to records across all Alma institutions.

(h/t to Matt Harrington for this explanation)

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.