Libraries, Design, and Innovation: "Designing for Digital" Brings it All Together

Since 2015, Designing for Digital has brought librarians, academics, designers, developers, strategists, and innovators together in Austin, Texas, to share and collaborate.

Bluespark has attended the conference the previous two years but this is the first year members of our team are presenting. 

(This is also the first year our President and Founder Michael Tucker, is calling himself an official resident of Austin. He just moved there!)

Now, back to the conference.

At 8am on April 4, Mark Dodgson and Alodia Cano are presenting on a project we have with Cleveland Public Library to improve engagement and increase library card registrations.

Working with CPL, we designed and developed a Learning Portal which consists of curated paths, or courses. These paths range from Gardening 101 to understanding local history. Each path is a carefully crafted list of books, events, human books, videos and more that help an individual gain a thorough understanding of a specific topic. Tracking progress helps to show patrons how much of the path they’ve completed and encourages discovery of other resources and paths based on the interests they’re already pursuing.

This talk is a case study about the Cleveland Public Library and how our team worked with CPL to design this Learning Portal which will help build engagement with the resources and services available from the library.

Presentation Details

• Title: Building Engagement with Both Digital and Physical Resources: Reimagining the Delivery of Library Materials at the Cleveland Public Library
• When: Tuesday, April 4 at 8am
• Where: AT&T Hotel & Conference Center, Austin, Texas

Since our founding in 2009, we’ve been working with libraries and universities, and some of our longest running partnerships are with these clients — specifically, UCLA and Indiana University Libraries.

This is a community we work closely with on a regular basis, so we believe it is important to support and participate in it. We look forward to seeing many of the great community members in Austin!

About our Speakers:

Mark Dodgson, UX Strategist and Designer

Ontario, Canada

Mark Dodgson is a designer at heart. Even before graduating from Mohawk College of Applied Arts & Technology​ in Ontario, Canada with a degree in Advertising and Media Communications, Mark had several years of experience in visual design and art direction. He continued to advance as a print and web designer with various companies, and soon moved into a management role as director of web services at an advertising agency.

At Bluespark, Mark works on most projects and with most clients, including Stanford History Education Group, Red Hat, Siebel Scholars, Cleveland Public Library, Indiana University Libraries, and UCLA.

You can listen to Mark talk about Bluespark's process on this LibUX podcast: The UX and Library Web Development Process.

Alodia Cano, Project Manager

Los Angeles, California

Alodia Cano has always been a creative problem solver, and has built her career around figuring out ways to get to the goal. While her career started in radio promotions, Alodia applied her skills to various roles and industries, including events and promotions, advertising, and product management. At the heart of everything she does, Alodia analyzes the data she has and crafts a plan towards the goals and objectives, adjusting strategy and managing risks along the way.

Her vast experience includes the production of a large-scale entertainment website where she led multiple teams toward a major site redesign as well as a restructuring of development process and practices to increase efficiency and productivity. She has experience managing projects with complex integrations such as SSO, identity management, game-to-web, and streaming video with authentication restrictions.

At Bluespark, Alodia manages projects for Indiana University Libraries, Cleveland Public Library, Red Hat, Siebel Scholars, Superior Recreational Products, and The Henry and Rose Pearlman Foundation.