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Alma

A client for Web Services provided by the Ex Libris's Alma Library System.

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'alma'

And then execute:

$ bundle

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install alma

Usage

Configuration

You'll need to configure the Alma gem to ensure you query the appropriate data. To do so in a rails app, create config/initializers/alma.rb with :

Alma.configure do |config|
  # You have to set the apikey
  config.apikey     = 'EXAMPLE_EL_DEV_NETWORK_APPLICATION_KEY'
  # Alma gem defaults to querying Ex Libris's North American API servers. You can override that here.
  config.region   = "https://api-eu.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com"

  # By default enable_loggable is set to false
  config.enable_loggable = false

  # By default timeout is set to 5 seconds; can only provide integers
  config.timeout = 10
end

Now you can access those configuration attributes with Alma.configuration.apikey

Making Requests

Get a Single user

 user = Alma::User.find(123456789)

 user.first_name
 > Chad

 user.email
 > chad.nelson@fictional.edu

 user.keys
 >{first_name: "Chad",
 ...}

Get details on a users fines

 fines = user.fines
 fines.sum
 > "20.0"

 fines.total_record_count
 > "2"

 fines
 > [#<Alma::AlmaRecord:0x000000038b7b50
    ...>,
    #<Alma::AlmaRecord:0x000000038b7b28
     ...>]

 fines.first.title
 > "Practical Object Oriented Design with Ruby"

Each fine object reflects the available fields in the returned JSON,as documented on the Ex Libris Api docs

Get details on a users loans

loans = user.loans

loans.total_record_count
> "2"

loans
> [#<Alma::Loan:0x000000038c6b79
  ...>,
  #<Alma::Loan:0x000000038c6b34
   ...>]

loans.first.title
 > "Javascript: The Good Parts"

loans.first.due_date
"2016-12-26z"

Each loan object reflects the available fields in the returned XML,as documented on the Ex Libris Api docs

Get details on a users requests - WIP

requests = user.requests

requests.total_record_count
> "1"

requests.list
> [#<Alma::AlmaRecord:0x000000038c6b79...>]

requests.list.first.title
> "Food in history / Reay Tannahill."

requests.list.first.pickup_location
> "Main Library"

requests.list.first.request_status
> "In Process"

Each request object reflects the available fields in the returned XML,as documented on the Ex Libris Api docs

Loans, fines and Requests can also be accessed statically

Alma::User.get_fines({:user_id => 123456789})

Alma::User.get_loans({:user_id => 123456789})

Alma::User.get_requests({:user_id => 123456789})
Get a single user without fees, requests, or loans

By default, this gem fetches a user's fees, requests, and loans. If you don't want these, you can pass the expand param with only the expansions you need.

# don't request fees or loans
user = Alma::User.find(123456789, expand: 'requests')

# don't request any of the above
user = Alma::User.find(123456789, expand: '')

Bib Records

Wrappings for some of the API endpoints described by the Bibliographic Records and Inventory section of the Ex Libris Developers Network

All the items for a Bib Records

Corresponds to the Retrieve Items list api endpoint

To get the list of items for all holdings of a bib record. items = Alma::BibItem.find("EXAMPLE_MMS_ID")

You can also pass a holding ID as an option, if you only want that holdings items. items = Alma::BibItem.find("EXAMPLE_MMS_ID", holding_id: EXAMPLE_HOLDING_ID)

The response is a BibItemSet which can be iterated over to access items:

items.each { ... }

items.total_record_count
> 4

You can remove items that are missing or lost from the result set avail_items = items.filter_missing_and_lost

Items can be grouped by the library they are held at, which returns a hash with library codes as the keys and an array of items as the values.

items.grouped_by_library
{ "MAIN" =>
  [#<Alma::BibItem:0x000000038c6b79...>],
  "NOT_MAIN" =>
  [#<Alma::BibItem:0x000000038c6b88...>, #<Alma::BibItem:0x000000038c6b94...>,],
}

The data for each item can be accessed via hash representation of the item structure, e.g.:

item = items.first

item["holding_data"]["call_number"]
"T385 .F79 2008"

item["item_data"]["location"]["value"]
"STACKS"

There are also numerous convenience methods

# Boolean checks
item.in_temp_location?
item.in_place? # Basically, On Shelf or Not
item.non_circulating?
item.missing_or_lost?
item.has_temp_call_number?
item.has_alt_call_number?
item.has_process_type?


# Opinionated Accessors - return the value, or an empty string

# Returns temp library/location if appropriate, else normal library/location
item.library
item.library_name
item.location
item.location_name

# which use these methods under the hood
item.holding_library
item.holding_location

item.temp_library
item.temp_location


# Looks for Temp call number, then alternate call number, then normal call number
item.call_number

# and which use
item.temp_call_number
item.alt_call_number


# standard accessors
item.process_type
item.base_status
item.circulation_policy
item.description
item.public_note

Logging

Using :enable_loggable

This gem exposes a loggable interface to responses. Thus a response will respond to loggable and return a hash with state values that may be of use to log.

As a bonus, when we enable this feature using the enable_loggable configuration, error messages will contain the loggable values and be formatted as JSON.

Using logging configuration.

You can configure logging via the following configurations:

  • enable_log_requests: (true/false)
  • log_level
  • log_format
  • logger

The logger can be any logger including the Rails.logger. This logging feature is provided through HTTParty.

Debugging requests

You can configure debugging requests by setting the enable_debug_output configuration which is false by default. This feature is also provided through HTTParty.

You can configure the debug_output_stream which is set to $stderr by default.

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake spec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Use bundle exec guard to continuously run specs while developing.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/tulibraries/alma_rb. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the Contributor Covenant code of conduct.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.