Case Study: Tallinna Raamatukogud: A Full Rebuild for Estonia’s Largest Public Library Network

Tallinna Raamatukogud is Estonia’s largest public library network, with 19 libraries across Tallinn and a mobile library bus called Katarina Jee. For most residents, the website is the first point of contact for finding their nearest branch, checking what is on, booking a room or looking up a contact.

The old site, previously at keskraamatukogu.ee, had not kept pace with the network’s growth. The information architecture did not have a clear model for representing a network of this complexity. There was no consistent structure for branch pages, no reliable way to surface events by location and no logical separation between information that applied to the whole network and information that was specific to a single branch. Navigating it required patience.

Behind the scenes, the problems were more significant. Staff directories and contact information were updated by hand. There was no connection to the City of Tallinn’s SAP system, where the authoritative employee and organisational data actually lived. That meant two separate records of the same information, maintained in parallel, with the website version usually being the less accurate of the two. For a public institution serving the whole city, the site also fell short of WCAG accessibility standards, which was not a minor issue when the service was intended to reach everyone.

ADM handled the full scope of the project: UX research and design, development, hosting, end-user training and ongoing maintenance.

Phase One: Structure Before Screens

The project ran in two distinct phases. The first focused entirely on UX and information architecture, and no visual design work began until that foundation was in place.

For a network of this size, that sequence matters. A site covering dozens of branches, departments and service types needs clear structural logic before anyone considers colours or typography. Without it, the result is a site that looks modern but still leaves users searching for basic information, which is more or less what had happened with the previous one.

The UX phase covered information architecture mapping, wireframes and an interactive prototype built in Figma. Usability tests were run on the prototype before development began. This is the point of testing at that stage: problems found in a Figma file are inexpensive to fix. The same problems found after the build are not. The design phase was signed off by Tallinna Raamatukogud in July 2025.

Phase Two: Building for the People Who Run It

The technical build was completed in WordPress. One of the central requirements was that library staff needed to be able to manage the site themselves after handover, not just in theory but in practice. This included updating content, adding events, changing opening hours and publishing urgent notices. None of these tasks should require a developer.

The permission model was built to reflect how the network actually operates. Each branch has its own editor, who can manage that branch’s page independently, including contact details, opening hours, events and booking requests. Central administrators retain control over the broader site structure. The result is a content management setup where updates happen at the source, rather than through a central bottleneck.

Each branch and department has a dedicated page with contact details, opening hours, a description and an integrated map. A network-wide view brings all locations together in a single interactive map, giving visitors an overview without having to navigate branch by branch.

The SAP Integration

The SAP integration was the most technically involved part of the project. The City of Tallinn manages its employee and organisational data centrally through SAP, and previously none of that data flowed to the library website. Staff directories were maintained separately and manually, which meant they were constantly at risk of falling out of date.

The new site queries SAP once a day and pulls the latest data automatically. Administrators can still override individual entries where needed, adding context that SAP does not capture, correcting information or removing a specific person from public view. However, the default state is now accurate without anyone having to maintain it manually.

For a network with staff spread across dozens of locations, this is not a small change. It removes an ongoing administrative task that was both time-consuming and unreliable.

Everything Else the Site Needed to Do

A library network has a broader range of functional requirements than most websites. The build covered all of them.

Events and news are managed through a dedicated module with a calendar view. An urgent notice system allows time-sensitive alerts to be published either across the whole network or targeted to a specific branch, which is useful when a location closes unexpectedly or changes its hours at short notice.

The room and equipment booking system lets visitors submit requests directly through the website. Branch editors receive those requests in the back end and can approve or decline them. It is a self-service workflow that would previously have required a phone call or an email.

Multilingual support was built in via WPML, reflecting the reality of Tallinn’s population. WCAG accessibility compliance was addressed at both design and development level, meeting the standards that apply to publicly funded institutions.

A few smaller features are worth mentioning. The site includes Mailchimp newsletter integration, a blog module, contact forms, social media integration and a welcome screen built specifically for the public internet terminals in library buildings, a detail that shows how many different use cases the site has to serve.

Handover and Launch

End-user training was completed in January 2026. The second phase was formally accepted in February. The site went live on 26 March 2026 at tallinnaraamatukogud.ee. Hosting runs on a professional server environment with separate TEST and LIVE instances, allowing changes to be tested safely before going public.

The change from the old site is most visible in the day-to-day work of managing it. SAP handles staff data automatically. Branch editors manage their own content. The central team has oversight without being the only people who can make changes.

For visitors, the change is more straightforward: the site now does what a public service website is supposed to do. Branch information is accurate. Events are current. Booking is online. The site is accessible to people regardless of language or disability. These are not ambitious goals, but they are the ones that matter most when the service is meant for everyone in the city.

Interested in what this kind of project could look like for your organisation? Feel free to contact us to discuss the details.