Mapping by Genre in a Multi-Branch System

The City of Cockburn Library in Western Australia implemented StackMap across their three branches six years ago. It can be challenging when libraries across a multi-branch system, such as Cockburn Library, shelve their collections by genre using their own, unique, genre lists in each location. We spoke with Trystan Rodden-Starr, Technology Support Officer, about the process of customizing locations with genre subcategories to develop a more accurate mapping system. 

StackMap’s been a great addition to the search functionality for the users. It’s been really easy for us to update when we move shelves around and change collections from the back end. We’ve had a good experience making customizations to the idiosyncrasies we need to change to reflect properly on the map.

One issue we had is how to map genres. By default, StackMap used the collection location to do the mapping but we wanted to use genres instead. If we were just using the location it wouldn’t map correctly. For example, a fiction subgenre of thriller wouldn’t work properly on the map if it was just mapping to the collection fiction, so we needed to use the subgenre thriller.

Once the customizations were implemented, we did some testing, and it all worked perfectly. It was really quick using the StackMap dashboard to create shelving and put in the collections. Implementing it across three branches probably took a few hours. It was pretty simple. When building out ranges on the map that are uniform with others, you can duplicate the shelves in the web app, make a bunch of copies, drag them out, and make double and single-sided shelving. It was good to have that nice, smooth UI experience.

—    Trystan Rodden-Starr, Technology Support Officer, City of Cockburn Library