Last week, library staff and industry experts from across North America joined the BiblioCommons team to kick off BiblioCon ’23. As with every BiblioCon, the event was a fantastic gathering, one that generated many great real-world insights on how to build thriving and inclusive public libraries. Conference attendees.

A well-designed and accessible website experience is critical to attracting and retaining users online. People have an abundance of options online, yet limited time — so, they expect the websites, platforms, and apps they visit to respect their time. How? By respecting their accessibility needs and security concerns,.

As people lean on the web for more of their daily lives, it has become critical for libraries to extend their strong in-person experiences to digital spaces. From the ability to browse a collection and borrow an item to connecting with the library and more, every part of the experience needs to carry over online.

Today, designing a library website is more than just creating web pages with information. Rather, it’s now about building a platform geared toward engaging users. Patrons have no shortage of content, media, and other experiences to choose from online, especially when we consider social media. As there’s now so much.

Marketers are in the driving seat of bringing their library’s vision to life by steering the messaging, reaching out to the community, creating pathways for the library’s voice and personality to rise to the top, and, not least, cementing the library as an important part of people’s lives.

How do you get people excited about digital books, audio books, and magazines, along with all the other resources available at your library?

According to user experience professionals, inclusivity is at the heart of making digital platforms useful, usable, and enjoyable for users of any identity, background, or experience.

There’s a lot more to digital accessibility than technical compliance with standards. It’s a mindset, where you become aware of people’s unique abilities and changing needs.

Library websites need to work hard because libraries do so much for their communities. You want to engage your visitors, grow the number of card-carrying patrons, increase the lending of your collection, and expand participation in all your community services.

Colors are an excellent way to convey emotion and create a unique personality for your brand. Using the right combination of colors takes a little planning. For example, if your library logo is navy blue and red, the same colors can be used on the website where appropriate, but there are some scenarios you would want.