Designing a 5-Year Technology Roadmap grounded in equity and lived experience

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Challenge

Berkeley Public Library set out to create a 5-Year Technology Roadmap—but the challenge wasn’t simply choosing new tools or systems. Technology across the library had grown organically over time, resulting in fragmented platforms, uneven user experiences, and growing strain on staff to make systems work.

While the IT department carried much of the responsibility, the impacts of these systems were felt across the organization—by frontline staff, administrators, and patrons alike. The library needed a way to understand how technology was actually experienced day to day, ensure equity across roles and communities, and translate those insights into a long-term, sustainable plan.

Most importantly, the library wanted to avoid a roadmap created about people, rather than with them.

Solution

Middlestate partnered with Civic Makers and Berkeley Public Library to design an equity-centered engagement process that put staff and patron experience at the center of technology planning.

The work began by co-creating a shared set of design principles with stakeholders to guide both the engagement and the roadmap itself. These principles—people-centered, equitable, adaptable, and supportable—became a common language for decision-making across departments.

Over six months, we led a participatory research process that included interviews, focus groups, surveys, site visits, contextual inquiries, cognitive walkthroughs, and supplemental research. This approach allowed the library to see beyond individual tools and instead understand how systems, workflows, and expectations interacted across the organization.

Rather than treating technology as a purely technical problem, the process surfaced how policy, training, communication, and ownership shape whether systems succeed or fail. Insights were continuously shared back with a cross-departmental core team, allowing findings to inform recommendations in real time.

These insights were translated into a clear, structured 5-Year Technology Roadmap organized around strategic focus areas, key initiatives, and actionable activities—balancing long-term vision with practical next steps.

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"CivicMakers and Middlestate took great care in understanding the human needs and cultural components of technology requirements across the Berkeley Public Library system.”

_{— Deputy Director of Library Services,City of Berkeley}

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Result

The final roadmap provides Berkeley Public Library with a shared, human-centered framework for guiding technology decisions over the next five years.

It includes recommendations across digital platforms, internal systems, hardware, and communication tools, as well as ongoing practices such as regular technology assessments, staff training, and collective goal setting. Just as importantly, the process helped shift technology stewardship from a single department to a shared organizational responsibility.

By grounding technical planning in lived experience, the library now has a roadmap that supports greater efficiency, adaptability, inclusivity, and patron satisfaction—while giving staff a clearer sense of direction and ownership in shaping the future.

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