FAQs

• IPEDS
• LARS 

IPEDS:

• IPEDS Portal
• Instructions for Academic Libraries
• Submission Form for Academic Libraries 

Not everything in the submission form can be calculated using Alma Analytics:

• Number of databases is difficult to count in Alma because of the way that Alma separates electronic collections and databases, and because sometimes collections may be activated for search only.
• If you do not use Acquisitions, you won't be able to calculate expenses through Alma.
• If you catalog eBooks as physical books, or use other local practices, the reports will not be able to take these practices into account.
• You will need to separately calculate numbers for external services like ILLiad, or for databases where you are unable to load reports into Alma.

For those questions that can be answered using Alma Analytics, the SLS has created a dashboard for you to use for your calculations. Please do not copy the dashboard to your local environment, as that will cause connection problems across SUNY. However, if there is a report that you would like to edit, feel free to copy that report to your local folder, edit it, and use it locally. 

How to use the SLS IPEDS dashboard:

• From Alma (must have Analytics role), click on Analytics, Access Analytics
• Choose Catalog in top right menu
• Go to Shared Folders>Community>Reports>Consortia>SUNY>Statistics>ACRL/IPEDS>IPEDS Dashboard
• Click on Open underneath the Dashboard name:

Circulation Tab:

• Physical Library Circulation (Column 1): 
  • This report uses the Fulfillment subject area in analytics and counts Loans (Not in House) for the following criteria:
    • Material Type is not equal to / is not in  Audio Recorder; Calculator; Camcorder; Camera; Case; Chart; Clicker; Computer; Equipment; Equipment Case; Flat Screen Adaptor; Flip Video Camera; Headphones; Keys; Laptop; Laptop Accessory; Laptop Charger; Lockers; Microcard; Mobile Device; Mobile WiFi; Phone/computer charger & surge protector; Projector; Remote presenter (pointer); Room; Room or Table; Tablet; iPad
    • Location Name is not equal to / is not in  Borrowing Resource Sharing Requests; Lending Resource Sharing Requests
  • Because institutions may track their fiscal years differently, this Column asks you to provide a start date and end date for the loan number. Once you have chosen your dates, click Apply.
  • Alma identifies In House Loans as loans that are not checked out to a library patron. These type of loans are when you find an item on a table or cart and swipe it to count in house use. This is not the same as something like a reserve item that is checked out to a patron for in library use. Those type of loans, where they are checked out to a patron, are included in the Loans (Not In House) statistics.
  • Renewals are tracked separately in analytics, so this report should give you only initial checkouts, not renewals, as requested by IPEDS.
  • Transactions for equipment or computers are removed by the material type filter in the report.
  • If you identify electronic reading devices (e.g. Kindles) as any of the material types in the filter, you may need to run a local report to find circulation numbers and add them to the total circulation.
• Digital/Electronic Library Circulation COUNTER 5 (Column 2) & COUNTER 4 (Column 3):
  • If not all of your vendor usage statistics are loaded into Alma, you may need to add external counts to these results.
  • Because institutions may track their fiscal years differently, this column asks you to provide a start date and end date for the usage data. Once you have chosen your dates, click Apply.
  • These reports prompt you to enter your usage date range and hit apply. Any report on the page that uses the same filter will be automatically updated.
  • The reports display unique usages, along with the platform name, in order to make it easier for you to decide how to add the results.
  • Because COUNTER 5 did not go into effect until January 2020, you may have a mix of COUNTER 4 and COUNTER 5 reports in Alma. You will need to decide which reports to add together, for which platforms, based on the following IPEDS criteria:
    • If COUNTER 5 reports are available, IPEDS asks for TR_B1, TR_J1, and IR_M1 totals
    • If COUNTER Release 5 reports are unavailable and if COUNTER Release 4 reports are available, IPEDS suggest that libraries report counts from BR1, J1, and MR1. If BR1 and MR1 statistics are not available, BR2 and MR2 (not available in Alma Analytics) statistics can be used.
    • When you're ready to switch to COUNTER 5 for a vendor, make sure to stop using COUNTER 4, so you don't end up with results for the same month for both types that you then have to pull apart when counting total use. 

Interlibrary Loan Services:

• Lending (Column 1): Total interlibrary loans and documents provided to other libraries. This report prompts you for the lending creation date, and displays number of requests by shipped format. Filters include external request id = all 01SUNY and shipped format is not null.
• Borrowing (Column 2): Total interlibrary loans and documents received. This report prompts you for the borrowing creation date, and displays number of requests by requested format. Filters include partner active status is Active, and partner code is not equal to ILL; ILLCER; ILLiad; UNFILLED; UnfilledRS; WORLDSHARE; ill.

Expenses:

• These reports are based on the MNPALS Consortia's IPEDS expense reports.  
• One-time purchases (Column 1): Prompt to limit by fiscal description (once applied, will change both columns), shows Order Line Type and Transaction Amount, filtered by continuity = ONETIME
• Subscriptions (Column 2): shows Order Line Type and Transaction Amount, filtered by Order Line Type is equal to / is in  Access Service - Subscription; Database - Subscription (removed); Electronic Book - Standing Order; Electronic Book - Subscription; Electronic Book Package - Subscription (removed); Electronic Collection - Subscription; Electronic Journal - Subscription; Electronic Journal Package - Subscription (removed); Electronic Title - Standing Order; Electronic Title - Subscription; Other Service - Subscription; Physical - Standing Order Monograph; Physical - Standing Order Non Monograph; Physical - Subscription; Physical Computer File - Subscription; Print Book - Standing Order; Print Journal - Subscription; Remote Computer File - Subscription

Collections tab:

• Notes:
  • Where possible, calculates number of titles, not number of items, as requested by IPEDs.
  • IPEDS asks you to "Report the total number of each category held at the END of Fiscal Year 2020." This date may be different at each campus, so each title-based report needs a date prompt for Creation Date or Portfolio Activation Date <= [your end of fiscal year]. Once you enter the date and hit apply, that date will be applied for all of the reports that use it on the page.
  • Title numbers are based on resource type rather than location, as that was a more stable filter that could be used at any SUNY campus, unlike something more fluid, like location names.
  • We understand that sometimes the item resource type may be different from the title record resource type, but this seemed like the most universal way to calculate number of active Titles.
  • Your title bib record may not always have a resource type, especially if it was cataloged as a brief record. Column 1 includes a report that will list all the physical bib records with holdings in your system that do not have a resource type (resource type null, unknown, or other). You will need to decide whether you want to manually add these records to your totals or fix them to add a resource type and then rerun the reports. Note that if you decide to fix them, you need to wait until the next day to rerun the report.
• Physical Titles by Resource Type (Column 1)
  • Reports based on Number of Titles with Physical Items (Active)
  • Physical Books: Number of titles with any of these resource types:  Atlas - Physical; Braille Book - Physical; Braille Music - Physical; Book - Physical; Manuscripts - Physical; Notated music - Physical.
  • Physical Media: Number of titles with any of these resource types: Braille Serial - Physical; Journal (Ceased publication) - Physical; Journal - Physical; Newspaper (Ceased publication) - Physical; Newspaper - Physical; Other Serial (Ceased publication) - Physical; Other Serial - Physical; Serial component part - Physical
  • Physical Serials:
    • Number of titles with any of these resource types: Braille Serial - Physical; Journal (Ceased publication) - Physical; Journal - Physical; Newspaper (Ceased publication) - Physical; Newspaper - Physical; Other Serial (Ceased publication) - Physical; Other Serial - Physical; Serial component part - Physical.
    • IPEDs asks, "If possible, do not include earlier title changes; however, do not worry about removing them if it is not possible/feasible." Earlier title changes were not removed from the report.
• Electronic Titles by Resource type (Column 2)
  • Reports based on MNPALS consortia electronic titles reports
  • Electronic Books: 
    • Shows Title Count and Electronic Collection Public Name. Note that titles may not be deduped across vendors. Filters: Lifecycle is equal to / is in  In Repository; AND Availability is equal to / is in  Available AND Bibliographic Lifecycle is equal to / is in  In Repository AND Resource Type is equal to / is in  Atlas - Electronic; Book - Electronic; Manuscripts - Electronic; Notated music - Electronic AND Bibliographic Level is equal to / is in  m AND Suppressed From Discovery is equal to / is in  No
    • IPEDS asks you not to count titles in Hathitrust, CRL, or Internet Archive eBooks unless you own the titles. You should see these collections in your title count if you have them active in Alma.
    • IPEDS asks you not to count DDA titles unless they've been purchased. If you are using the Proquest eBook Central Integration Profile, DDA titles may be identified with the filter ProQuest Purchase Model is equal to / is in  DDA Candidate; DDA Candidate, Subscription. You may delete this number of portfolios from your eBook total. If your DDA collection is managed by SLS in the NZ, you will not be able to use this report because the purchase model is not manually tracked.
  • Electronic Media: 
    • Shows Title Count and Electronic Collection Public Name. Filters are the same as those for electronic books except that Resource Type is equal to / is in  2D non-projectable graphic - Electronic; Audio - Electronic Form; Audio musical - Electronic; Audio nonmusical - Electronic; Digital File - Audio; Digital File - Image; Digital File - Video; Map - Electronic; Map - Electronic Form; Mixed material - Digital; Music - Digital; Projected medium - Electronic; Visual material - Digital
    • IPEDS notes "Do not count image databases (ARTStor, AP Photo Archives) in this category; count as databases." Alma does not include individual portfolios for ARTStor, so this should not be a problem. AP Photo Archives was not part of the CZ at the time this guide was created.
  • Electronic Serials: 
    • Shows Title Count and Electronic Collection Public Name. Filters are the same as those for electronic books except that Resource Type is equal to / is in  Journal (Ceased publication) - Electronic; Journal - Electronic; Newspaper (Ceased publication) - Electronic; Newspaper - Electronic; Other Serial (Ceased publication) - Electronic; Other Serial - Electronic; Serial component part - Electronic
    • IPEDS notes "do not count earlier title changes; however, do not worry about removing them if it is not possible/feasible." Earlier titles are not removed in these reports.
    • IPEDS notes, "do not count e-serial titles from HathiTrust Center for Research Libraries, Internet Archive, and similar collections unless the library owns the digitized item and it is accessible under current copyright law." You should see these collections in your electronic serials list if you have them active in Alma.
• Digital Titles by Resource Type (Column 3):
  • The third column is for digital titles that you may have brought in from external repositories through a digital import profile (DSpace, SOAR, etc.). You will add these numbers to those in Column 2 to get your total number of Electronic/Digital titles.
  • Reports based on Number of Titles with Digital Representations (Active), not number of representations for each title
  • Digital Books: Resource Type is equal to / is in  Atlas - Electronic; Book - Electronic; Book - Physical; Atlas - Physical; Braille Book - Physical; Braille Music - Physical; Manuscripts - Electronic; Manuscripts - Physical; Notated music - Electronic; Notated music - Physical
  • Digital Media:  Resource Type is equal to / is in  2D non-projectable graphic - Electronic; 2D non-projectable graphic - Physical; 3D artifact - Physical; 3D artifact – Component Part; Audio musical - Electronic; Audio musical - Physical; Audio nonmusical - Electronic; Audio nonmusical - Physical; Map - Digital; Map - Electronic; Mixed material - Digital; Music - Digital; Projected medium - Electronic; Projected medium - Physical; Visual material - Digital
  • Digital Serials: Resource Type is equal to / is in  Journal (Ceased publication) - Electronic; Journal (Ceased publication) - Physical; Journal - Digital; Journal - Electronic; Journal - Physical; Microforms; Newspaper (Ceased publication) - Electronic; Newspaper (Ceased publication) - Physical; Newspaper - Electronic; Newspaper - Physical; Other Serial (Ceased publication) - Electronic; Other Serial (Ceased publication) - Physical; Other Serial - Electronic; Other Serial - Physical; Serial component part - Electronic; Serial component part - Physical

Retrieving Results:

• Alma Analytics provides you with the option to Print under the Settings gear in the top right of the page. You may also export to Excel. 

LARS:

• About LARS
• LARS Dashboards
• Reporting LARS Data
• LARS Survey

About LARS: 
LARS stands for "SUNY Library Acquisition and Retirement (LAR) Survey." 

Each year, SUNY System Administration requests State-operated campuses to provide detailed information concerning library acquisitions and retirements (weeded/withdrawn items) made during the previous fiscal year. This information is required to complete SUNY's annual financial statement. The information is not available from any other source and therefore must be collected via completing LARS.

During 2020-2021 fiscal year, LARS was modified to collect printed material and one-time (perpetual/non-subscription) electronic materials only to better reflect the data SUNY System Administration requires. Prior to the 2020-2021 fiscal year, LARS collected all electronic resources' costs. LARS also collects data for gifts received and items withdrawn (retirements) during the previous fiscal year.

NYS spending (State, IFR, CCDA) should only be reported using LARS. All other spending should be omitted. 

LARS Dashboards:

The SLS created the following dashboards to meet SUNY needs based on the level of acquisitions being used at SUNY institutions:

• Full Acquisitions
• Acquisitions without Invoices
• Technical Acquisitions with List Price

IMPORTANT: All Dashboards can be run directly from the paths provided for each dashboard. DO NOT edit or copy the dashboards, reports, or prompts from Shared Folders>Community>Reports>Consortia>SUNY>Statistics>LARS_2. Contact the SLS at info@sunyolis.libanswers.com if you would like a dashboards created in your institution's analytics path.

Full Acquisitions LARS Dashboard:

The full acquisitions LARS Dashboard is used for SUNY institutions that are using full acquisitions in Alma. Full acquisitions in Alma is defined as institutions that create POLs with allocated funds and create invoices in Alma.

Data under the INTERNET and/or other ELECTRONIC Materials and PRINT and Other PHYSICAL Materials tabs are based on the fiscal year in which the POL is created. 

Data gathered under the Gifts tab is based on how the institution creates their POLs for gifts. SUNY best practice is to use a Gift vendor and Acquisitions Method of Gift. Not all SUNY institutions use this method, and as result, two reports are available under the Gifts tab. The institution's Gift acquisitions workflow will determine which of the two Gift reports will be used to pull their Gift data:  

• Gift vendor and Gift Acquisitions Method
• Gift vendor and Fiscal Year the item was created

Data under the Weeded Items tab is based on items withdrawn during the previous fiscal year. SUNY best practice is to add wdn to Statistics Note 1 prior to withdrawing (MSP-50). Not all SUNY institutions use this method, as a result, two reports are available under the Weeded Items tab. The institution's withdrawing items workflow will determine which of the two Weeded Items reports will be used to pull their data:

• Weeded Items Using wdn per MSP-50
• Weeded Items without Using wdn

Full Acquisitions Dashboard Path:
Shared Folders>Community>Reports>Consortia>SUNY>Statistics>LARS_2>LARS Dashboard - Full Acq
 

Acquisitions without Invoices LARS Dashboard:

The Acquisitions without Invoices LARS Dashboard is used for SUNY institutions that are creating POLs with allocated funds, but they are not creating invoices in Alma.

Data under the ELECTRONIC MATERIALS tab is based in the fiscal year in which the POL is created.

Data under the PRINT and Other PHYSICAL Materials tabs is based on the fiscal year in which the POL is created.

Data gathered under the Gifts tab is based on how the institution creates their POLs for gifts. SUNY best practice is to use a Gift vendor and Acquisitions Method of Gift. Not all SUNY institutions use this method, and as result, two reports are available under the Gifts tab. The institution's Gift acquisitions workflow will determine which of the two Gift reports will be used to pull their Gift data:  

• Gift vendor and Gift Acquisitions Method
• Gift vendor and Fiscal Year the item was created

Data under the Weeded Items tab is based on items withdrawn during the previous fiscal year. SUNY best practice is to add wdn to Statistics Note 1 prior to withdrawing (MSP-50). Not all SUNY institutions use this method, as a result, two reports are available under the Weeded Items tab. The institution's withdrawing items workflow will determine which of the two Weeded Items reports will be used to pull their data:

• Weeded Items Using wdn per MSP-50
• Weeded Items without Using wdn

Acquisitions Without Invoices Dashboard Path:
Shared Folders>Community>Reports>Consortia>SUNY>Statistics>LARS_2>LARS Dashboard - Acq w/o Invoices
 

Technical Acquisitions with List Price:

The Technical Acquisitions with List Price LARS Dashboard is used for SUNY institutions that are creating using Technical Acquisitions in Alma with a list price.

Data under the ELECTRONIC MATERIALS tab is based in the PO Line Creation Fiscal Period date.

Data under the PRINT and Other PHYSICAL Materials tabs is based on the PO Line creation date for Print Monograph, on the POL status of Waiting for Renewal for Print Serials, and on the PO Line creation date for Non-Print Physical.

Data gathered under the Gifts tab is based on how the institution creates their POLs for gifts. SUNY best practice is to use a Gift vendor and Acquisitions Method of Gift. Not all SUNY institutions use this method, and as result, two reports are available under the Gifts tab. The institution's Gift acquisitions workflow will determine which of the two Gift reports will be used to pull their Gift data:  

• Gift vendor and Gift Acquisitions Method
• Gift vendor and Fiscal Year the item was created

Data under the Weeded Items tab is based on items withdrawn during the previous fiscal year. SUNY best practice is to add wdn to Statistics Note 1 prior to withdrawing (MSP-50). Not all SUNY institutions use this method, as a result, two reports are available under the Weeded Items tab. The institution's withdrawing items workflow will determine which of the two Weeded Items reports will be used to pull their data:

• Weeded Items Using wdn per MSP-50
• Weeded Items without Using wdn

Technical Acquisitions with List Price:
Shared Folders>Community>Reports>Consortia>SUNY>Statistics>LARS_2>LARs Dashboard - Tech Acq w/ List Price

Reporting LARS Data:

LARS data can be gathered by the reporting institution or the SLS. In 2021, the SLS worked with the SUNY reporting institutions to determine if the institution will self-report or the SLS will report the data for the institution. The SLS will continue to pull data for institutions that have request the SLS to do so.

The SLS is unable to pull LARS data for institutions not using acquisitions in Alma, not adding a list price to POLs when using the Technical Acquisitions Method, or using a variety of acquisitions in Alma. These institutions will need to gather their LARS data and submit it via the LARS survey to the SLS.

Please contact the SLS at info@sunyolis.libanswers.com if you are not sure if the SLS is pulling your institution's data or if a previously self-reporting institution would like to have the SLS pull and report their data moving forward.

LARS Survey:

The LARS survey link with be sent out to SUNY institutions in June of each year to the [contact] at each institution. The surveys should be completed by the institution (self-reporting) or the SLS (reporting for the institution) by the end of July each year. 

The LARS Shelf Space Survey will be sent out separately to the primary resource sharing contact at each institution.