City Web Application Wins 2011 Excellence in GIS Award

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 23, 2011

For more information, please contact:
Rick Dietz, Director of Information & Technology Services, City of Bloomington, 349.3485, [mailto:dietzr@bloomington.in.gov]
Jared Schlemmer, Communications Director, City of Bloomington, 349.3406, [mailto:schlemmj@bloomington.in.gov]

Bloomington, IN -- Mayor Mark Kruzan announced today that the City of Bloomington's myBloomington web service has won the 2011 Excellence in GIS (Geographic Information System) Award from the Indiana Geographic Information Council.

"The City's GIS contains a great deal of useful information," Kruzan said. "myBloomington provides us another method of distributing data using a simple, easy to use application for all our residents. I am proud that our hard working and creative Information and Technology Services team has been acknowledged for its innovative approach to this effort."

Each year, the Indiana Geographic Information Council honors outstanding projects through the Excellence in GIS Award. This award recognizes organizations for creative and practical applications of GIS in Indiana that have recently pushed the envelope of GIS technology through the innovative development of a unique technology service or application that has produced a new benefit for GIS users. These projects exemplify how GIS is being implemented, managed and expanded to improve services for Indiana residents. They also help show elected officials, agency heads and community leaders the importance of investing in GIS.

"We are always trying to provide enhanced access to City data and value-added data to Bloomington residents and businesses," said Rick Dietz, Director of City Information and Technology Services (ITS). "It's is nice to be recognized for the effort and specifically for the myBloomington service that we worked so hard to create."

The City's myBloomington web service won the award in the category of Large Community, beating out several strong competitors.

"It's an honor to be recognized by our peers in the statewide GIS community," said Laura Haley, City GIS Manager. "This project was particularly rewarding being a collaborative effort from many areas within the ITS Department."

The City's myBloomington web application is available athttp://bloomington.in.gov/myBloomington. The application was jointly developed by the City ITS department's GIS and Systems group staff. The myBloomington tool provides location-based information about City services available at individual community addresses. It also pulls data from the City's GIS system and other data sources to create a unified profile/portal to information about address locations in

Bloomington, such as the latitude and longitude of any address, City Council districts and Councilmembers, trash pickup day, nearby road closings, historic sites, parks, public art and more.

The myBloomington application is available on the City's website at [http://bloomington.in.gov/myBloomington|http://bloomington.in.gov/myBloomington ] and on the City's mobile website at [http://bloomington.in.gov/m/m|http://bloomington.in.gov/m/m].

For more information about myBloomington or the City's GIS system, contact Dietz at 349-3485 or [mailto:dietzr@bloomington.in.gov].

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