The Hawaii State Library System website is honored to receive the award for Best Government Website from the Web Marketing Association.

Prior to the redesign, the website was difficult to navigate, and left library patrons with very little idea of the depth and breadth of the library’s offerings. Outdated technology made it difficult for the staff to effectively promote library events and services, leaving the website out of step with the times and with the library’s role as a pillar of the community.

Through collaborative user-centered design workshops with library staff, design strategies were uncovered that would appeal to fiercely loyal library users and new users alike. The team used patrons’ personal stories about how the library has impacted their lives, to surface and promote the library’s diverse services such as passports, talking books for the visually impaired, quilt patterns, free databases, free online classes, eBooks, thousands of events, and so much more. The site was also re-organized to reflect how patrons ask questions, making it easier for users to search and find the items they seek. Existing social media imagery was also integrated into the new visual design demonstrating that the library is the safe, friendly, community-driven, and a fun place.

State Librarian Stacey Aldrich shares, “We are grateful to the team at the Hawaii Information Consortium, LLC for the thoughtful studies and approach to rebuilding our Web presence. Our website now offers simple navigation and the ability for staff to easily point patrons to all of the great resources HSPLS offers. One of the biggest successes has been the event listings that now surface thousands of cultural, community, computer, reading, and instructional programs available throughout our 50 branches on six islands. We are excited that patrons are now finding programs and services that they previously did not know the library offered… which was exactly our goal!”

The website was created in partnership with Hawaii Information Consortium, LLC, as part of the eHawaii State Portal Program.

About Hawaii State Public Library System (HSPLS)

HSPLS is the only statewide system in the United States. The mission of the Hawaii State Public Library System is to nurture a lifelong love of reading and learning through its staff, collections, programs, services, and physical and virtual spaces and serves as the educational, informational, and cultural heart of Hawaii’s communities.

About eHawaii.gov

This website was launched as part of the eHawaii State Portal Program. Pursuant to chapter 27G, Hawaii Revised Statutes, the Portal Program is overseen by the Access Hawaii Committee, which collaborates with provider Hawaii Information Consortium (HIC) along with state and county agencies to continually identify new online services to be added to the portal.

About NIC

Founded in 1992, NIC Inc. (NASDAQ: EGOV) is celebrating 25 years as the nation’s premier provider of innovative digital government solutions and secure payment processing, which help make government interactions more accessible for everyone through technology. The family of NIC companies has developed a library of more than 13,000 digital government services for more than 5,500 federal, state, and local government agencies. Among these solutions is the ground-breaking digital government personal assistant, Gov2Go, delivering citizens personalized reminders and a single access point for government interactions. More information is available at www.egov.com.