Overall, I really like the ideas talked about but I agree with Terran
that something would have to be done with circ data related to
patrons. We use the purge function to anonymize our patron data but I
could see other ways of dealing with this. We also have retention
policies related to retaining patron circulation data.
On Thu, Sep 25, 2014 at 4:54 PM, Rogan Hamby
<rogan.ha...@yclibrary.net <mailto:rogan.ha...@yclibrary.net>> wrote:
I suppose I don't understand the concern on your part as at that
level if someone could access the raw db they could just query
someone's circulation history, fine payments, etc... since those
are recorded as transactions unless you're doing something to
anonymize or wipe those as soon as they're done. Even then
someone could see all current transactions at that level.
On Thu, Sep 25, 2014 at 4:33 PM, McCanna, Terran
<tmcca...@georgialibraries.org
<mailto:tmcca...@georgialibraries.org>> wrote:
This relies on the circulation and rating data still being
tied to the patron in the system, though - yes, it'd be on the
database side and not on public view, but it's still creating
a picture of a patron's reading history that has privacy
implications. Of course, this feature should be set for
systems to enable or disable, so that systems that are
concerned about privacy simply won't turn it on. (PINES, for
example, limits the retention of circulation history in the
system as much as we can because of our privacy policies, so
any feature that is linked to a patron's history would be
unusable for us.)
If ranking data were stored completely independently of the
patron, then library systems would be able to use it without
privacy concerns, and patrons wouldn't even need to be logged
in to use it - but then it wouldn't be able to give
completely customized recommendations to a specific patron,
either. It's a definite tradeoff.
Terran McCanna
PINES Program Manager
Georgia Public Library Service
1800 Century Place, Suite 150
Atlanta, GA 30345
404-235-7138 <tel:404-235-7138>
tmcca...@georgialibraries.org
<mailto:tmcca...@georgialibraries.org>
----- Original Message -----
From: "Vanya Jauhal" <vanyajau...@gmail.com
<mailto:vanyajau...@gmail.com>>
To: "Evergreen Discussion Group"
<open-ils-general@list.georgialibraries.org
<mailto:open-ils-general@list.georgialibraries.org>>
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2014 3:41:02 PM
Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Awesome Box Integration
Hello Rogan
This is exactly what I had in mind. All the recommendation
processing will take place in background, and all the user
will see is a recommendation and not the information of any
other patron. This way his experience with Awesome Box will
get enhanced.
And yes, we can maybe, start off with some broad level genres,
like, as you mentioned, fiction, non-fiction, documentaries,
etc. Then, depending upon the infrastructure of the system and
the response of that categorization, we can build upon the
algorithm accordingly.
You are right- it would be a big task in itself, but since the
number of parameters involved are few and explicit, it gets
simplified to an extent.
On Fri, Sep 26, 2014 at 12:50 AM, Rogan Hamby <
rogan.ha...@yclibrary.net <mailto:rogan.ha...@yclibrary.net> >
wrote:
I don't see an issue with doing analysis of circulation
patterns on the backend so long as nothing identifying is exposed.
For example, if all I saw as a patron was a tab in my opac
that said "you thought The Yiddish Policeman's Union was
Awesome! Some others do did also thought this was Awesome ....
" I don't see that as different from doing the same thing with
circulations. It's not telling patrons even what the points of
comparison were unless they only had a single item in their
circulation history and even then it doesn't tell them how
many other patrons, how much, etc....
I'm dubious about subject headings also but wouldn't want to
dismiss it out of hand. It might work. Without doing some
experimenting I could see it going either way. Some fixed
fields I could see working, like fiction and non-fiction. Age
groups? Well, at least I can tell you I can't rely on those in
my catalog. :)
However, I also worry that reading recommendations based on
circulation history could easily grow into a much more
complicated task, especially depending on how we deliver those
recommendations. Looking at a single boolean value tied to the
user and item (circ table?) could still be quite a project by
itself especially once all the useful bits and pieces are
built in.
On Thu, Sep 25, 2014 at 2:37 PM, McCanna, Terran <
tmcca...@georgialibraries.org
<mailto:tmcca...@georgialibraries.org> > wrote:
Agreed - it's a great idea in theory, but I'm not sure how
well it would work in actual practice. Even in a single
library, genre subject headings are usually pretty
inconsistent in the MARC records because of copy cataloging,
and that usually gets even more inconsistent in a consortium
of libraries. Perhaps it could be partially weighted on genre
subject headings, but not overly reliant on them? It might be
worth considering the fixed field values for fiction vs.
non-fiction and for age groups, too.
I love the idea of providing recommendations based on other
people that have similar taste ("other people that liked this
book also liked these books...") but if the data is tied to
actual patrons (and I'm not sure how it couldn't be) then
quite a few library systems would face legal privacy issues
and wouldn't be able to use it. We're currently using a
commercial service to pull in reading recommendations because
the recommendations can't be tied back to any of our patrons.
Terran McCanna
PINES Program Manager
Georgia Public Library Service
1800 Century Place, Suite 150
Atlanta, GA 30345
404-235-7138 <tel:404-235-7138>
tmcca...@georgialibraries.org
<mailto:tmcca...@georgialibraries.org>
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rogan Hamby" < rogan.ha...@yclibrary.net
<mailto:rogan.ha...@yclibrary.net> >
To: "Evergreen Discussion Group" <
open-ils-general@list.georgialibraries.org
<mailto:open-ils-general@list.georgialibraries.org> >
Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2014 2:02:58 PM
Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Awesome Box Integration
I can see some challenges to tracking genre and I'd be
hesitant to put too much value on it. There are ways to
catalog it but in my experience actually relying on it being
in records (much less being consistent) is very unreliable in
organizations that do a lot of copy cataloging / don't have
centralized and controlled cataloging and there quite a few in
that boat.
That concern aside, I've always thought this would be a fun
and potentially valuable thing to add.
On Thu, Sep 25, 2014 at 1:44 PM, Vanya Jauhal <
vanyajau...@gmail.com <mailto:vanyajau...@gmail.com> > wrote:
Hello everyone
I'm Vanya, from India. I'm a candidate for OPW Round9
internship with evergreen.
While discussing the idea of Awesome Box integration with
Evergreen, Kathy and I discussed the possibility of making the
Evergreen support for Awesome Box more interpretive using
Artificial Intelligence.
What if we could train the system to give weightage to
people's "awesome" tags on items, depending upon how much
their previous tags are appreciated by other people.
For example: Let's say you tag a book to be awesome. Now, if
100 other people check that book in, and (lets say) 80 of them
also tag it to be awesome- it will mean that your opinion
matches a majority of people. On the other hand, if 100 other
people check that book in and (say) only 5 of them tag it as
awesome, this would mean that your awesome tag is not in
coherence with the majority.
So, in the former case, your awesome tag can be given more
weightage as compared to the latter.
Also, the weightage may vary according to genres. So- you may
have a good taste in mystery books but your taste in classical
literature might not be the same as the majority crowd. So-
the weightage of your awesome tag in mystery would be higher
than classical literature.
We can even extend it to provide recommendations to users
depending on their coherence with other users with similar taste.
I am looking forward to your suggestions and feedback on this.
Thank you for your time
Vanya
--
Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA
Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services,
York County Library System
“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long
enough to suit me.”
― C.S. Lewis
--
Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA
Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services,
York County Library System
“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long
enough to suit me.”
― C.S. Lewis
--
Rogan Hamby, MLS, CCNP, MIA
Managers Headquarters Library and Reference Services,
York County Library System
“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough
to suit me.”
― C.S. Lewis <http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1069006.C_S_Lewis>
--
Tim Spindler
tjspind...@gmail.com <mailto:tjspind...@gmail.com>
*P** Go Green - **Save a tree! Please don't print this e-mail unless
it's really necessary.*
