The Norwood Library Trustees were told Jan. 14 that the library has completed a major website redesign and expanded several technology and access services for patrons.

James Perlman, a library staff member who led the project, told trustees the boardroom demonstration highlighted a new homepage, a Center for Early Childhood Education page, a children’s landing page and a separate top-level “Community Resources” menu. “First of all, we pretty much concluded the redesign of the website,” Perlman said, adding that the new community-resources menu moved a formerly long accordion list into a dedicated area so the information would be easier to find.

Perlman said the site includes links to domestic-violence supports, civic and educational services, health and legal resources, and that reference staff are already directing patrons to the new pages. “It’s going to be a really tremendous and powerful resource for members of our community,” he said.

Why it matters: The redesign centralizes service links and improves accessibility and security. Perlman said multi-factor authentication was enabled for back-end access, fonts and contrast ratios were improved for readability, and several public Windows machines were upgraded to Windows 11 to maintain vendor support and security patches.

Supporting details: Trustees heard that the library added loaner Windows 11 laptops (replacing more-limited Chromebooks), installed a new staff server to replace unsupported hardware, and upgraded a self-check machine. The reference department obtained Kurzweil 3000 accessibility software for one workstation to support users with learning differences. Environmental sensors that monitor temperature and humidity in storage and archival areas were described as sending occasional alerts to staff when thresholds are exceeded.

The museum-pass program was changed to allow any member of the Minuteman Library Network to borrow passes. Perlman said the library worked with its museum-pass management provider to remove Norwood-only checks, enabling the broader patron base to use those passes; whether other libraries permit access to nonresidents remains a per-library configuration. “So now anyone who’s a member of Minuteman Library Network can utilize that service and benefit from those museum passes,” Perlman said.

Staff and one-on-one tech help: Trustees also heard that one-on-one tech-help appointments are now more distributed across the reference team rather than centralized with a single IT lead. Perlman and reference staff handle complex technical issues while others manage routine account and streaming-media questions.

Ending: Trustees were encouraged to review the site and the new resource menus; Perlman said the community-resources menu went live the day before the meeting and that staff will continue adding and curating items.