StackMap’s Simple Set-Up
The Austin Public Library and StackMap have made the local news!
Jake Fejedelem heard about StackMap at a consortium webinar.
“I watched the demo and thought, I’ve got to have that. I made a good case for it at my library and the ball got rolling. Two weeks later we had it up and running.”
“It was an incredibly brief process. Doing the actual stackmapping was really easy; I did it myself over the course of two days so it wasn’t a staff drain.”
He pointed us to the recently published piece on the subject: “Reporters came into find out about how some internet hotspots had been functioning (they weren’t) and I said let me show you something else that’s cool.”
Here’s the article:
Austin Public Library has a new tool to help patrons find their books and other items to check out.
Earlier this month, the library debuted a program through StackMap where library patrons can look up items on the library site and generate a map to their location.
“So for people who don’t know the Dewey Decimal System or aren’t really sure where some of these smaller collections in the library are, it will actually show you physically in the library where it is, and you can even print it off from home,” Technology Librarian Jake Fejedelem said.
Austin is the first library in their consortium to use the system after the idea came up at a tech team meeting, and the idea excited Fejedelem.
“That’s like the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” Fejedelem joked.
StackMap takes a floor plan of the library and all the shelving and the library then plots all the call numbers for books and movies to the map.
When people log in at the library or at home, they simply hit the “Map It” button and then get a printable map that shows where the item is located.
Though it will take a bit for people to learn about and get used to the program, Fejedelem said it will help answer one of the most commonly asked questions at the library: Where is this item?
“It’s like: That solves so many problems,” he said. “I think once people get used to using it, it’s going to be a game-changer, because a lot of questions we get are: I have it up on the catalog; where is it in the library?”
On the average shift, Fejedelem said he’ll get about a dozen questions per shift asking for help finding books.
See StackMap in the Austin Daily Herald here. Thanks to Jake and Austin Public Library for your kind words. We’re so happy to be working with you!
Thinking about getting StackMap for your library? Questions about the setup process? Get in touch with us at feedback@stackmap.com. We’d love to hear from you.