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Running the API Gauntlet: Getting Over a Quarter of a Million Patron Records Out of and Into Alma
Conference or Developers Day
Developers Day
Abstract
In September 2016, the libraries of the University of Cambridge and colleges began the programme to migrate its nine Voyager databases to Alma. The data migration process was very challenging and towards the end of the process in December 2017, the patron records were in an unusable state. We had a window of two days in January 2018 in which to extract the patron records, correct them and load them back into Alma before we could go live. The Alma Users API was judged to be the best option which would enable us to fix the problems with the data. This presentation reviews our experience with the Alma API in general and the User API in particular. It covers the challenges we encountered and how they were resolved. Finally, it provides recommendations on how the API can be improved upon to delight developers working at scale.
Main Topic
Alma
Presenters
Dr Oladeji Famakinwa, University of Cambridge
Presenter's job title
Acting Head of Digital Services (Library and Web Services)
Co-Presenters
Lesley Grey, University of Cambridge
Co-presenter's job title
Deputy Directory - Digital Initiatives & Strategy
James Howe, University of Cambridge
Co-presenter's job title
Senior Software Developer