IUG 2026 Annual Conference

Highlighting the new Account Portal, integration of programs to be searchable and overall personalization trends.

Leverage SimplyReports and SQL to generate insightful reports, creating valuable opportunities to analyze and evaluate the data stored in your records.

Sierra's circulation reports provide basic usage data but lack key information for making informed collection and scheduling decisions. This session demonstrates how to use a custom SQL query to extract detailed circulation analytics, including time-based trends, collection performance metrics, and cost-per-use calculations. The presenter will provide an overview of a SQL query that mines Sierra's circulation transaction tables to generate comprehensive monthly circulation reports. Attendees will learn how the query distinguishes between local and INN-REACH checkouts, calculates cost per use, and determines the age of each item at checkout. The session then demonstrates how to import this data into SpringShare's LibInsights platform to create an interactive dashboard for visualizing usage patterns by hour, day, patron type, fund code, and call number range. Attendees will leave this session with an understanding of how to to use SQL at their own library, how to export and visualize data with LibInsights, and use this data for library decision-making.

One of the most exciting parts of the Polaris version 7.8 update was the introduction of the bulk patron import process. This in depth panel discussion features the shared experience of three libraries who have utilized bulk imports for projects with student/school library cards. Topics which will be covered include:

Getting started & first steps
Data & spreadsheet preparation
The patron upload process in Leap
Post-upload upkeep

The collected panelist experience includes a wide breadth of applications from small to large patron imports, varying significantly based on school partners and legislative needs. If you are considering using the bulk upload process at all, bring your questions for this interactive panel! Panelists: Nathaniel Burnard - Systems Services Manager, Allen County Public Library (IN) --Nathaniel Burnard currently serves as the Systems Services Manager at the Allen County Public Library, where he leads in ILS administration, circulation, and internal customer service processes. Nathaniel has nearly 25 years of experience in public libraries in administration, management, and youth services. Talia Hofacker - Technology Librarian, Aurora Public Library (CO). --Talia Hofacker (she/her) began her career as an Adult Services Librarian with a special interest in library technology. After working in adult services for 8 years, Talia was able to take that experience and transition into ILS and library technology management with the Aurora Public Library, where she has worked for the last 3 years. There she managed their Sierra system and migrated to Polaris in May 2025. Beth Lane - Systems & Technology Librarian II, Placer County Library (CA) --Beth Lane , MLIS, has over 13 years of experience as a public service librarian. For the past five years, she has administered Polaris, led large technology projects, redesigned the library website, and managed the library's social media. She values the IUG community for its guidance and collaboration, which helps her improve systems and services for patrons.

An update on the exciting Vega Reports tool, showing new Discover reports and the plan for the inclusion of OverDrive circulation data.

Lightning Rounds are short (approximately 10-minute) talks that briefly highlight a project or topic. This session includes (not necessarily in order):

- Start Your Regional Group: Tools, Templates & How IUG Can Help (Derek Brown)
Want to start a regional users group? In this 10-minute lightning round, the IUG Steering Committee will show you how to leverage MemberLeap, Discourse, Discord, and our collective experience to launch your local community. We'll share success stories from our regional relaunch and provide the tools you need to build active groups that strengthen partnerships and shape Clarivate products. Join us to get your regional group started!

- Building a Library Analytics Stack with Sierra, DuckDB, and Power BI (Tyler Works)
Libraries generate vast amounts of data, but it is often siloed and overwhelming making it challenging to turn this information into meaningful insights. This session will give an overview of how the Helen Plum Library is extracting and transforming data from Sierra using DuckDB and then loading it into a Power BI dashboard to empower staff to make data informed decisions. Participants will gain an understanding on how to move beyond spreadsheets and manual reporting to a script driven ETL process.

- A new way to de-dup bib records in Polaris (Wes Osborn and Mike Fields)
We will demo and talk about how we built a new interactive platform for de-duping bib records in Polaris.

- Going Commando: Editing print template files without Jaspersoft Studio
For this Sierra administrator, updating print templates with Jaspersoft Studio has become a dicey proposition in recent years, one which more often than not results in a template which will not render. Instead, the .jrxml files can be successfully tweaked in a text editor, and often more quickly than using Jaspersoft. Examples shown will be the monthly rotation of checkout receipt (due slip) footer images and the more challenging task of inserting a new image in a hold pickup notice template. Anyone capable of manually editing HTML can edit a .jrxml file. 

Creating and automating reports is an effective way to gather data, distribute weeding lists, and any other task that you may find yourself performing regularly. Go beyond basic scheduled reports in SimplyReports and take them to the next level with Excel. In this session I'll show you: 1) How I've taken advantage of advanced publishing to schedule weeding lists for branches 2) How to work with regularly scheduled reports in Excel 3) Tools I've created using a combination of scheduled reports and Excel 4) Examples of formulas I use to help manage our collections.

Learn about the Rest APIs available for extracting data and producing transactions in Sierra from an external source.

Review of the on-going evolution of Mobile, including the addition of push notifications and other key enhancements from the last year.