StackMap Eliminates Rotating Display Confusion

In Wilmette, IL, the library is the cultural epicenter of the community, and staff are invested in making patrons feel comfortable, particularly when locating items. We spoke to Jillian McKeown, Adult Services Manager, about how this library-loving community has leveraged StackMap for six years and counting. 

The number one rule of being a librarian is that you have to adapt to the needs of the community. Here in Wilmette, the patrons are really invested in the library, and it’s a community that’s really serious about arts and culture. For example, we just announced our “One Book, Everyone Reads” author. Every year we have this huge event where the entire community and other communities beyond read the same book and the author comes and talks about the book. We buy hundreds of copies of this book in different formats like audio and large type, and it’s located in four different sections of the library. It can be confusing to patrons, but with StackMap they can easily find [and] locate the format they’re looking for. It really enables patrons to find and envision where the materials they need are in the library.

Another example is during Lyric Opera season, we create a special display like we do for other cultural programs and we need to change the space around. StackMap helps with that because it eliminates the confusion that comes with moving things around for the displays, and it guides patrons who are looking for materials that used to be on one side of the building and have now been moved to the other because of the display.

I’ve worked at other libraries where you have to show patrons where books are a lot and they want you to help them, but at Wilmette, everyone wants to do everything themselves. Some patrons don’t ever want to come up to us and ask where something is, and if they do, they’re always extremely apologetic. StackMap has been that extra security blanket for patrons when they don’t feel comfortable asking us at the desk, they can just look at StackMap. It has very much empowered patrons.

—    Jillian McKeown, Adult Services Manager