Project Updates

1 2025-11-25 Project Team Update - Natural Language Search feature
2 2025-11-19 Primo Implementation November Update
3 2025-11-13 Note on Primo features for deduplication and grouping records
4 2025-11-03 Decision on AI Features Enablement
5 2025-10-23 DUL Open Forum Brief Update
6 2025-10-14 Implementing Primo for Libraries at Duke

2025-11-25 Project Team Update - Natural Language Search feature

Note from Erin Nettifee shared to the Primo channel in Microsoft Teams

The November release for Primo VE NDE includes a new-to-Primo feature that they are calling "Natural Language Search" and labeled as "Ask Anything" in the UI. Documentation can be found here: https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Primo/Product_Documentation/020Primo_VE/Primo_VE_(English)/040S…

While it is not obviously an AI feature like the AI Research Assistant, "Ask Anything" does use AI. Essentially, this feature takes a searcher's statement "I want to learn more about the history of water pollution in North Carolina" and uses a ChatGPT engine to convert that statement into a Primo advanced query, and then run it for the user.

There are some interesting features; some libraries have reported that it significantly improves issues like zero-result searches, and many libraries like that the advanced query that the feature generates is available for the user to see along with their search results, so they can see how "Ask Anything" converted their question.

However, there are major issues of concern, including bugs with search queries not in English; statements about rate limiting without documentation about what rate limiting is imposed; and undocumented behavior with content filtering.

Given those concerns, and in line with the earlier decision about handling AI tools, we're electing to turn this feature off for now. We expect to learn more from Ex Libris during the active project phase about how this tool works, and we will share what we learn with stakeholders.

2025-11-19 Primo Implementation November Update

Email from Thomas Crichlow to DUL All Staff and Lib-Everyone-Professional-School-Libs email lists

Question of the Month: Why will we implement Primo VE NDE rather than Primo VE?

Most institutions who use Primo are currently on a version known as Primo VE; this month, ExLibris launched a new version known as Primo VE NDE; NDE stands for Next Discovery Experience
ExLibris will be working with us to implement NDE for Duke rather than VE, which will save us from having to undertake a VE to NDE migration.
NDE includes improvements to the user interface and will be the focus of ExLibris' efforts going forward; ExLibris will work with institutions who are on VE to complete a migration to NDE over the next two years
See a growing list of libraries that have implemented Primo VE NDE

Highlight of the Month: Noteworthy Search Feature in Primo

The advanced search in Primo NDE supports searching the Title field using a "starts with" parameter. See University of Toronto Libraries to see this feature in action.

What the Implementation Team has been doing

Erin and other team members have met with stakeholders including staff from Research and Public Services, Rubenstein Library, Collection Services, Goodson Law Library, Ford Library, Divinity Library, and the Medical Center Library
We have been learning about Primo and how we can manage the patron-facing user interface
We have been exploring processes that we can use to track and manage configuration changes for Primo
We have been creating and refining the Jira tickets the Implementation Team will use to guide our work; we currently have over 130 tickets in our backlog

Upcoming work

Continue meeting with stakeholders
Implement initial configurations to the Primo VE NDE user interface to support future stakeholder feedback and testing
Refine the list of questions we want to ask when we begin meeting with ExLibris in January
Communicate with stakeholders to share more details about the project and how we will work together to support this transition

Project Timeline

October to December: project team focuses on learning Primo and meetings with stakeholders and leadership teams to hear your feedback and concerns
January: begin the formal project with Ex Libris staff following their standard schedule
April to May: Communication, training, and workshop sessions with staff/stakeholders to help prepare for our upcoming transition to Primo
Mid-May: We go live with Primo in production and apply related changes to websites and applications across libraries at Duke in collaboration with library staff/stakeholders

Note: We will be able to provide more details about our Primo timeline after we begin meeting with the team from ExLibris in January.

Past Updates

See our Project Updates wiki page for past updates

2025-11-13 Note on Primo features for deduplication and grouping records

Note from Erin Nettifee shared to the Primo channel in Microsoft Teams

Out of the box, Primo supports what it calls Duplication Detection (or Dedup) and FRBR Grouping. Dedup rolls up duplicate records into one record and combines the delivery related information into that one record display; FRBR grouping relates records together with a message about "Multiple versions exist." You can read more about it here: https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Primo/Product_Documentation/020Primo_VE/Primo_VE_(English)/090D…

We have decided to turn both of these off for now, for a few reasons:

We do not do duplication detection currently in the Duke view of Books & Media, and as such, this does not feel like we would be losing something needed right at the start
The FRBR grouping out of the box seems exceptionally aggressive; it appears to assume multiple versions based only on uniform title. This results in what we think are very messy search results for keywords like "Symphony No. 9"
The configuration allows us to easily turn the feature off, and then if desired, turn it on slowly by experimenting with the available keys - that's an approach we would feel more comfortable with in order to evaluate the best configuration

I do expect that we'll be able to get some coaching on this feature from Ex Libris when the formal project begins in January, and that will better allow us to decide if we think this feature should be configured from the beginning. We'll share what we learn with stakeholders when we get to that point.

2025-11-03 Decision on AI Features Enablement

Note from Erin Nettifee, project lead

Primo supports an AI-based chat tool called the Primo Research Assistant: https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Primo/Product_Documentation/020Primo_VE/Primo_VE_(English)/015_Getting_Started_with_Primo_Research_Assistant

Primo also supports display of Document Insights for select Proquest products: https://knowledge.exlibrisgroup.com/Primo/Product_Documentation/020Primo_VE/Primo_VE_(English)/030Primo_VE_User_Interface/Links_to_Document_Insights_in_Primo_VE

After reviewing available information, the project team has decided to turn both features off. We intend to evaluate them for implementation, but want to focus first on core UX/UI features. We will share more information about a potential timeline for evaluation with stakeholders as soon as we are able to.

2025-10-23 DUL Open Forum Brief Update

Karen Newbery presented at DUL Open Forum

We’re excited to share with you about the project to implement Primo, Ex Libris’ discovery interface for Alma. This spring, Ex Libris began rolling out an updated user interface for Primo called Primo Next Discovery Experience, often referred to as Primo NDE. This month, Ex Libris is making this updated Primo NDE user interface available on our sandbox, and Primo NDE is the version of Primo that DUL will implement. The project team will work to familiarize ourselves with the application while we wait for our Ex Libris project team to be available in the new year. Once the project team is available, our implementation will take about four months to complete.

While the core project team will be the ones meeting with Ex Libris, we’ll be reaching out to our stakeholders regularly for your input, testing, and feedback. We’ve already scheduled listening sessions with every DUL leadership team and the professional school libraries during the month of November. We’ll be sharing updates here at Open Forum and at First Wednesday, and we’re hoping to plan a spring series like the popular Alma Café. As we move along in this project, we’ll share broadly when these opportunities are scheduled.

Timeline:

October – December: project team focuses on learning Primo, as well as meetings with stakeholders to hear your feedback

November – Listening sessions are scheduled with DUL leadership teams and the professional school libraries to hear your ideas and concerns.

January: We begin the formal project with Ex Libris staff following their standard schedule

Mid-May – We go live with Primo in production.

2025-10-14 Implementing Primo for Libraries at Duke

Email from Tim McGeary to the DUL All Staff and Lib-Everyone-Professional-School-Libs email lists

Duke University Libraries will implement Primo as our primary, patron-facing discovery interface, replacing TRLN Discovery. Work on this project will begin in October 2025, and we anticipate launching Primo at the end of Spring Semester 2026.

What is Primo?

The Primo library discovery service, an Ex Libris product, will provide patrons with a user interface offering discovery and access to the collections we manage in Alma, including books, e-books, journals, articles, multimedia items, and more.

Our use of Primo will replace the following applications:

TRLN-Discovery-based Books & Media Catalog

Catalog Request System / My Library Account

Summon

Why we are implementing Primo

Primo is a vended application that is well supported by staff at Ex Libris and integrates fully with Alma. Implementing Primo will remove our need to maintain our own home-grown Catalog Requests System / My Library Account platform and the need to subscribe to Ex Libris' Summon platform.

TRLN Discovery Books & Media Catalog has struggled to reflect the Alma catalog metadata and enriched content, which is a user experience that has not met our standard of excellence, despite hundreds of hours of additional work by staff in DST, RPS, and Collections Services.

The TRLN Executive Committee approved a recommendation by a TRLN working group focusing on Alma-related transitions to move away from our current shared TRLN Discovery-based Books & Media Catalog, a platform that was jointly created and maintained by staff from across TRLN institutions with the support of staff who had worked directly for TRLN.

Teamwork

Our Primo implementation will be led by a core team with regular, structured input from stakeholders from across all libraries at Duke. Throughout the project, we will be reaching out to you for your input, testing, and feedback. We will meet with key individuals, teams, departments, and existing governance groups, and we will have multiple sessions where stakeholders can drop in to give feedback on specific topics (announced in advance) and to test and provide feedback as the team works through various aspects of configuring our Primo sandbox.