Electronic Collections Managed Centrally by CARLI in the Network Zone

Last edit 11/26/2025.

The Alma Network Zone (NZ) supports the sharing of electronic collections to multiple institutions in the network, such that active resources appear automatically for library patrons in Primo VE. This functionality enables CARLI to activate collections once, centrally, without duplicating the work of importing records or managing activations and deletions at the institution level across all participating institutions.

This page documents the centrally shared collections from CARLI. Libraries that participate in sharing these collections should not usually need to activate the collections separately in their institution zones.

CARLI Ebook Program

The consortial CARLI Ebook Program provides full-text access to ebooks for all CARLI Governing members. CARLI has activated collections in the Network Zone for both current and previous programs.

• EBSCOhost Ebooks (approximately 2,000 titles purchased in 2000)
  • CARLI has activated the EBSCOhost Ebooks collection from the Alma Community Zone, and the activated titles match CARLI's entitlements.
• ProQuest Ebook Central (approximately 3,400 titles purchased in 2014 as part of the EBL eBook Patron Driven Acquisitions Pilot, along with member purchases in 2017 and 2018)
  • CARLI has activated the ProQuest Ebook Central collection from the Alma Community Zone; titles that are activated match CARLI entitlements.
  • I-Share member libraries that also have their own Ebook Central collections are encouraged to use autoholdings in order to keep both CARLI and institutional entitlements accurate.
• Oxford University Press & Partner Presses (Includes 2022-2023 titles as well as perpetual access titles purchased in 2021 and 2022)
  • CARLI manages this collection directly, using MARC records obtained through WorldCat Collection Manager.
• Wiley Online Books (Includes 2022-2023 titles as well as perpetual access titles purchased in 2021 and 2022)
  • CARLI manages this collection directly, using MARC records obtained through WorldCat Collection Manager.

CARLI Fully-Funded Resources

CARLI has activated most EBSCO e-Collections in Alma for all I-Share members via NZ. 

Additionally, CARLI has activated the collections corresponding to the full-text and streaming content collections for these fully-funded perpetual access e-Collections:

• HarpWeek, 1857-1912
• Historical Statistics of the United States
• Mary Ann Liebert Journals (journal content from 2005-2009)
• Sage E-Journal 2007 Deep Backfile Collection (journal content through 1998)
• Sage Knowledge (62 reference titles from 2003-2007)
• Springer Medicine E-Books (approximately 1,300 titles from 2005-2010)

Open Education Resources (OER)

CARLI is a member of the Open Education Network (OEN), a consortium of colleges and universities working to advance open textbook initiatives. OEN supports the Open Textbook Library, a searchable online catalog of complete textbooks available for faculty and students to freely use, adapt, and distribute to best meet the needs of their courses. Open textbooks can be downloaded at no cost or printed inexpensively.

CARLI has activated the Open Textbook Library collection, curated by the University of Minnesota, in the Alma Community Zone.  Resources will appear automatically in I-Share member libraries' Primo VE discovery instances when searching for "Open Textbook Library" (including quotes).

Open Access Collections

See Open Access Materials Program for selection criteria and history of Open Access/Free E-Collections for the Network Zone.

The spreadsheet of the current Network Zone (NZ) Open Access/Free E-Collections, active as of 12/02/2024, can be downloaded.

Collections Purchased by Groups of I-Share Members

ERead Illinois

eRead Illinois is a cooperative collection program that expands access to ebooks for Illinois residents through their public, academic, school, and special libraries.  The program is currently coordinated by the Reaching Across Illinois Library System (RAILS) and is funded by participating members.  CARLI participants access the collection of ebooks and audiobooks on the Boundless platform. 

CARLI staff update the collection in the network zone monthly after RAILS releases updated MARC records.  Titles held in the collection appear in each participating member's Primo VE discovery instance, and titles will also appear to users who search with an "all I-Share libraries" scope.  In Alma repository searches, participating libraries can view these titles within their institutions using a combined inventory search. 

NILRC OverDrive Consortium

The members of the NILRC OverDrive Consortium collaboratively manage a shared collection of ebooks and audiobooks hosted on the OverDrive platform.  Participating members fund the collection, which is updated in the network zone monthly, with cataloging provided by consortium members. Titles held in the collection appear in each participating member's Primo VE discovery instance, and titles will also appear to users who search with an "all I-Share libraries" scope. In Alma repository searches, participating libraries can view these titles within their institutions using a combined inventory search.

Technical Details for Centrally-Managed Collections

Inventory Management Groups

Alma includes functionality for sharing and distributing access to collections of resources to subsets of members. Inventory management groups contain lists of members eligible to access electronic collections, and when a group of members is added to a collection, that collection and its contents are inherited by the members from the network.  For most collections listed above, collections are shared with an inventory group containing all members. Some of the individual collections noted above are shared only with selected members.  When a member is added to or removed from a group, Alma and Primo VE may require several days to re-index the inventory from the collection and the Primo VE.

Cataloging Record Duplication

The collections noted above are activated and managed based on the available bibliographic data. In some cases, CARLI has selected the Community Zone collection and its records. In other instances, CARLI or groups of libraries provide cataloging records for the collection.  Whenever possible, CARLI will work to ensure that records in all collections conform to CARLI's Cooperative Cataloging Guidelines (e.g., full-level cataloging with OCLC control numbers). 

When records are provided from different sources and cataloging standards, catalog records for the same titles may be duplicated.  Whenever possible, CARLI will work to eliminate duplicates and merge these records into a single copy hosted in the Network Zone.

Troubleshooting and Reporting Problems

While electronic titles will be visible in Alma institutions' zones and Primo VE discovery instances, the URLs and portfolio details for network-shared resources will not be directly available for inspection. CARLI staff have developed several workflows for Troubleshooting Alma/Primo VE Broken Links, and these include steps you should take in investigating and reporting problems to CARLI and/or Ex Libris.