Gift Books in Alma

Owned by Lewis Day
Last updated: Sept 19, 2022
2 min read

Alma offers the opportunity to register gift items and collections, with these materials therefore being identifiable in reporting. For gift collections of books, we will create a collection level (stub) record in Alma; for individual volumes not received as part of a collection, individual records will also be created.

In all cases, the procedures below align with our established processes for acquisition and accession of materials. Only the vendor and lack of a payment are different.
Exceptions: Houghton archive items received for Yourcenar, Updike, and New Directions collections fall outside this policy.

  1. Curators deliver gift books or collections with routing slip and any paperwork to the designated shelving area in Acquisitions.

  2. Stamp the routing slip with date of arrival to Acquisitions.

  3. Open Incoming Collections Log and identify the item(s).

  4. Highlight line item in spreadsheet as 'green' to indicate received, and complete remaining entries in the line item.

  5. For single books, assign accession number to the book and import, identify, or create a bibliographic record for use.

For collections of books to be kept together (either temporarily or in perpetuity), assign an accession number for the collection and create a brief collection-level bibliographic record.

  1. Create POL for the item(s) in Alma, resulting in holdings and item records. Apart from coding, the ordering process is exactly the same as for purchases.

  2. Relevant details for these orders are:

    • Purchase Order Line Details:

      1. Location: All information as per usual

      2. Supplier: XGIFT

      3. Price: 0.00

      4. Fund: None (leave blank)

      5. Acquisition method: Gift

      6. Material type: Recommended: Book

      7. Reporting code: 7021 (Rare Books Special Collections) 

      8. Receiving Note: Gift of <name> (address); file name following this model:
        2023-100 This is a sample accession number for the material.
        XGIFT HARVARD John 2020-10-01 This is also the sample file name for any preserved paperwork associated with the gift.

  • ➤ Order Now

  • ➤ Acquisitions ➤ Receive ➤ Receive New Material

Filter to access this POL

  1. Status        Sent

  2. Locate        PO Lines

  3. In search box    POL number of the material

  1. Route with HOUTS routing and Aeon slips to Rare Book Section for cataloging, unless copy-cataloging at the point of Accessioning is possible.

  2. In the event of copy-cataloging at the point of accessioning, route with Aeon slip to End-Processing.If a collection-level Bib record is no longer needed, the Bib and holdings can be deleted; the financial subsystem data remains in Alma. There is no need to account for the occasionally discarded accession number.

  3. Scan any paperwork or documentation which may accompany the gift material and upload the file to our SharePoint for acquisitions. The naming convention for these files is: XGIFT HARVARD John 2020-10-01 (gift of John Harvard on October 1, 2020).

  4. If a collection-level Bib record is no longer needed, the Bib and holdings can be deleted; the financial subsystem data remains in Alma. There is no need to account for the occasionally discarded accession number.


Sample record

This title was received and processed using the steps above.

MMS ID: 990037867530203941

POL: POL-507052


The Order Record.


The Holdings Record.