Natalie Polson, of Eckerd College was awarded the 2026 Sherrie Kristin Memorial Scholarship, which honors Sherrie Kristin’s many contributions to the ELUNA community. Natalie contributed the following report on her ELUNA conference experience.
I would like to thank the ELUNA Steering committee and contributors to the Sherrie Kristin Memorial Scholarship. I know that this year has been especially challenging, given the reductions in funding to IMLS grants, leading to cuts in federal funding for K-12 schools and higher education. It is through the continued resilience and advocacy of fellow librarians and administrators that make this scholarship still possible.
This year, the conference was held in sunny Los Angeles, where an abundance of excellent eateries was in close proximity and the famed Richard J. Riordan Central Library, primarily known as the Los Angeles Central Library, was a 5-minute walk away. As the scholarship awardee, I was given the opportunity to stay at the luxurious LA Westin hotel, famed for serving as a backdrop in several Hollywood Blockbusters, such as Batman: Dark Knight Rises, True Lies and Interstellar, and other movies. The scholarship also included attendance to the Developers Day+, ALMA Analytics and ELUNA Annual Meeting, where I attended several sessions as a first-time attendee. This year, the conference felt generally bubbly and positive as I came across vendors, EX Libris representatives, fellow librarians, whether electronic resource librarians, systems administrators, or library leaders.
During Developers Day+, I enjoyed being in the room amongst systems administrators as we discussed open floor topics such as configurations and customizations for the PRIMO NDE (Next Discovery Experience User Interface) and listened to innovative solutions regarding creating custom library LLM models and using python script for metadata cleanup projects. I was amazed at the ingenuity of a Cataloging librarian who talked about their barcode project, where they handled metadata that had migrated from Voyager into ALMA and incorporated a VR headset to handle the updating and cleanup of their barcode metadata.
When I attended the Alma Analytics portion, I thought I would be listening to dry technical lectures regarding the creation of custom reports in Oracle. But, I found the selection of lecturers to be candid and humble as they led us through their own ALMA analytics journeys. When listening to Marcus Jun’s session on how to interpret Alma analytics terminology in his Analytics Phrasebook talk, it occurred to me that ALMA custom formulas aren’t intimidating if you take the time to learn the basic building blocks. Emily Nilson’s session on Making Dynamic Charts using ALMA’s Data Visualization workflows, showed us the availability of visual tools and interactive elements that can be utilized to build charts useful for end of year reporting and understanding library use.
When the time came to attend the ELUNA annual conference, I felt invigorated listening to the various conversations regarding Alma enhancements, new products being developed, and grappling with the plethora of AI tools and how to ethically navigate this new technology in the coming years. I made sure to pack my schedule with as many sessions as I could attend, so I could understand how various institutions, whether R1 research focused, consortially based, or small private liberal arts colleges were incorporating ALMA into their own local workflows. Being surrounded by 600+ conference attendees, it is easy to feel a bit overwhelmed by the sea of new faces and various perspectives. However, I challenged myself to meet new folks and took the time to thank the lecturers for their excellent presentations and acknowledge the contributions they have made to our ever expanding ELUNA community.
The highlights of the conference were seeing the hands-on demonstrations of how to use the various tools available in ALMA, which provided insights on solutions I could bring back to our small private liberal arts college. Being metadata driven, I attended sessions such as “Transforming Data into Insights: Evaluating Print Collections with ALMA Data Visualization” presented by Esra Coskun and Stephanie Baker and “Preparing Catalog Data for a Migration to Alma: Opportunities and Lessons Learned” by Shelby Anderson and Channon Goodrich.
In wrapping up my final thoughts, my favorite experience during the conference was being warmly welcomed and greeted by members of the Steering Committee. Thank you Jason Griffiths for promptly introducing me at the beginning of the ELUNA conference and firmly shaking my hand as I
crossed the stage to receive my award. Thank you David Schuster for getting me situated and saving me a chair next to you on the front row. Thank you Laura Morse for snapping photos of me as I stood in front of the entire ELUNA audience of peers and colleagues. This conference experience has left an indelible impression upon me and my greatest hope is to continue the momentum by supporting our library staff and staying connected to this great community!
Natalie Polson, Electronic Resources Librarian
Eckerd Library