The Great Chicagoland Library Guide: Suburban Systems From Schaumburg to River Forest

By the Public-Libraries.com Editorial Team · Updated August 9, 2026

One region, one shared catalog

Chicago's suburbs are home to dozens of independent public libraries, each governed and funded locally — yet most of them behave like a single, enormous library. The reason is SWAN (System Wide Automated Network), a Chicagoland consortium founded in 1974 that now links roughly 100 member libraries through one shared catalog of more than eight million items. On top of that sits RAILS (Reaching Across Illinois Library System), the regional system that runs the delivery vans shuttling requested materials from one suburb to another. Put simply: when you place a hold in one town, RAILS is often what physically carries the book to the branch near you.

This guide walks the suburbs from the northwest to the near-west — Schaumburg, Highland Park, Addison, West Chicago, St. Charles, River Forest, Hillside, Lyons, and Crestwood — and explains what each community's library is known for and how it plugs into the larger network. For the full statewide picture, see our overview of public libraries in Illinois.

Northwest suburbs: Schaumburg and Highland Park

The Schaumburg Township District Library is the anchor of the northwest suburbs and one of the busiest in the state — it is frequently cited as the second-largest public library in Illinois, serving well over 100,000 residents across Schaumburg Township. Its scale shows in the collection and the sheer number of public computers and program spaces packed into its central building. Notably, Schaumburg runs its own catalog rather than pooling into the SWAN shared catalog, so its holdings are enormous but organized independently of many of its neighbors.

Farther up the North Shore, the Highland Park Public Library is a long-established community library that has been reinventing its building for the 2020s. A major expansion and renovation — adding a large community room, a creative studio, a climate-controlled archives room, and a substantially bigger youth department — has been under construction, with completion targeted for late 2026. It is a good example of how established suburban libraries are adding maker spaces and event capacity rather than simply shelving more books.

DuPage and the Fox Valley: Addison, West Chicago, and St. Charles

Head west into DuPage County and you reach the Addison Public Library, which spent many years running a standalone system before joining SWAN in November 2023 — a move that instantly connected Addison cardholders to the consortium's multimillion-item shared catalog. Nearby, the West Chicago Public Library District serves western DuPage County and is a long-standing SWAN participant, giving a relatively small community access to the same regional catalog and RAILS delivery network as much larger towns.

Continue to the Fox River and you find one of the region's architectural gems. The St. Charles Public Library District traces its main building to a 1908 Carnegie-funded library, and it completed a roughly $18.6 million full renovation of that 50,000-square-foot facility, reopening in 2021 with meeting rooms, a café-style space, an outdoor terrace, and a makerspace. St. Charles joined the SWAN consortium in 2018, tying the Fox Valley into the wider Chicagoland catalog.

Near-west and south suburbs: River Forest, Hillside, Lyons, and Crestwood

Closer to the city, the River Forest Public Library serves a compact near-west suburb and has been a SWAN member since the 1990s, meaning River Forest residents have long been able to request items from across the network and pick them up locally. Adjacent Hillside Public Library, in western Cook County, is likewise a SWAN member and honors cards from other SWAN libraries as well as Illinois residents borrowing through the statewide reciprocal program.

To the south, the Lyons Public Library is a full shared-catalog member of SWAN serving its Cook County community, and the Crestwood Public Library District — established in 1969 — is another full SWAN member. Both are smaller-town libraries, but membership in the consortium means their patrons search and borrow from the same eight-million-item pool as the biggest systems in the region.

At a glance: what each suburb's library is known for

Free museum passes with Explore More Illinois

One of the best perks of any Illinois library card is Explore More Illinois, a free statewide program run by the Reaching Across Illinois Library System (RAILS). Cardholders at participating RAILS, IHLS and Chicago Public Library libraries can reserve free and discounted passes to museums, zoos, aquariums, botanical gardens, historical societies and park districts across the state. You reserve online at exploremoreillinois.org with your library-card barcode and PIN, choose a date, and go. See how these programs work in our museum passes at the library guide.

The suburbs above are only part of a huge network. Other major suburban systems worth knowing include the Arlington Heights Memorial Library, Naperville Public Library, Skokie Public Library, Oak Park Public Library and Evanston Public Library — all large, well-regarded systems woven into the same shared-catalog and reciprocal-borrowing web.

Making the network work for you

The practical takeaway is that Chicagoland's suburban libraries are far more connected than their many separate names suggest. If you live in the coverage area of any SWAN library, you can generally search one shared catalog, place a hold on an item sitting in another suburb, and let RAILS delivery bring it to your local branch. Even libraries that keep their own catalog — like Schaumburg — still participate in Illinois' broader reciprocal borrowing and interlibrary loan systems, so almost nothing in the region is truly out of reach. The best first step is always to get a card from the library that serves your address, then explore what the rest of the network can lend you.

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