The Boulder Public Library and the City of Boulder have opened the application process for the Library District Advisory Committee. Applications are open for three weeks; the deadline to apply is Wednesday, Sept. 8. Six to 12 volunteers will be appointed by the City Manager and serve a seven-month term from October 2021 through April 2022. The committee is expected to meet two to six hours per month.
A diverse panel of members will be selected to represent public input on the creation of a library district. Their recommendations will be delivered by staff to City Council in early 2022.
The Scope of Work of the committee will include:
Determining the desired service level and associated mill levy rate for community members who reside or own property within the proposed district boundaries.
Providing input on the following questions:
Will the library district own or rent the library buildings?
How will library staff transition to a district and will they retain benefits?
Will a library district contract with the city for service?
For more information please visit https://boulderlibrary.org/library-district/ or email Deputy Library Director Jenn Phares at Pharesj2@boulderlibrary.org.
The city launched its new website on July 12, and key performance indicators show it is off to a strong start. Although work remains to continue improving the website, performance data and user feedback from the first 30 days show the new website is faster and easier for the public to use.
One of the key metrics the city is tracking is if users found what they were looking for, which is based on responses to a pop-up box on the website. Of the more than 2,100 responses, 68% of users say they found what they were looking on the new city website, up from 64% on the old city website. The city is evaluating user feedback on an ongoing basis to update the website to better serve the public, plus identify iterative improvements and feature developments.
The chart below shows how the new and old city website compare on a variety of other key performance indicators:
Performance of New City Website During First Month
|
Key Performance Indicators |
Old Site |
New Site |
Change |
|
No. of Pages |
3,500 |
1,200[1] |
-66% |
|
No. of PDFs |
5,400 |
2,000 |
-63% |
|
No. Pages w/ broken links |
287 |
81 |
-72% |
|
Pageviews |
540,000[2] |
649,700 |
+20% |
|
Homepage Load Time (avg.) |
3.62 sec |
1.04 sec |
-71% |
|
Page Load Time (avg.) |
2.68 sec |
1.62 sec |
-40% |
|
Search Engine Success Rate[3] |
66% |
84% |
+18% |
|
Accessibility Score[4] |
61 |
79 |
+30% |
1 Excludes calendar, person contact card pages for more consistency with old website.
2 Monthly average for traffic on old website.
3 Defined as percentage of people who clicked on a link after searching.
4 Score based on automated and semi-automated tasks and ranking calculated by Siteimprove
The Communication & Engagement and IT departments will continue to monitor these performance metrics and others over time to holistically assess the website and identify improvements.
For more information on the new website, visit the website redesign project page.
If you have questions or suggestions, please contact Communication and Engagement Director Sarah Huntley at 720-564-2111 or huntleys@bouldercolorado.gov.
Regards,
Nuria
