[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Activity metric for relevance

[Hardy, Elaine]

First off, I think this is a good enhancement and would be very helpful to
all users particularly when searching a large database - a keyword search
for Abraham Lincoln returns over 2400 hits when searching all of PINES.263
for one of the larger systems. 

 

Mike - would your algorithm mean that, with a title like Team of Rivals
(which had an initial high rate of circulation and holds, then interest
fell off to revive again with the movie), while it is first popular it
rises in the search results, to fall as interest tapers, and then arises
again, using older and newer interest data? That way it might "bump" above
other titles that were popular in that interval more quickly than without
the algorithm?

 

Elaine

  _____  


J. Elaine Hardy
PINES Bibliographic Projects & Metadata Manager
Georgia Public Library Service
1800 Century Place, Ste 150
Atlanta, Ga. 30345-4304

404.235-7128
404.235-7201, fax
ehardy at georgialibraries.org
www.georgialibraries.org
www.georgialibraries.org/pines




From: open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org
[mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of
Mike Rylander
Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2013 10:11 PM
To: Evergreen Discussion Group
Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Activity metric for relevance

 

Kathy,

 

Have you considered allowing an aging parameter for some bumps, so that
newer data toward the near end of the horizon is considered more
important? For instance, spikes in circulation might have a larger short
term effect on relevance, but over time, while still being factored into
relevance, would be less important though still considered in the bump
logic.  I ask because I have a simple algorithm I'm using in another
project, to be debuted at the conference, that may be portable to this
work.

 

--miker

 

 

On Thu, Mar 14, 2013 at 3:53 PM, Kathy Lussier <klussier at masslnc.org>
wrote:

Hi all,

MassLNC is working with our partners at MVLC to develop an activity metric
(aka popularity metric) that will allow sites to rank more popular items a
little higher in search results than items that don't see as much
activity. I've raised this idea on the list before. Although Evergreen
allows sites to adjust relevancy based on the appearance of keywords in
certain fields, which is highly useful, our hope is that this additional
functionality will lead to further improvement when ranking results by
relevance.

As an example, if a user were conducting a keyword search on "abraham
lincoln,"  there are many titles in most US libraries where the words
"abraham lincoln" show up in the title. There would be no way to tease out
the titles that are getting the most attention by readers. In fact, a
title like "Team of Rivals" ranks very low in our search results even
though there is a high likelihood it is the title the patron is seeking.
By applying a metric based on activity, we might be able to see those
more-recently popular titles floating higher in the search results list.

I would like to share MVLC's proposal outlining the details for
implementing this project. The proposal is available at
http://masslnc.cwmars.org/node/2757. It provides a lot of flexibility in
allowing sites to define what "high activity" means to them. Circulation
activity, holds activity, total copies, and publication age/bib record age
can all be used as an activity metric.

If you have any feedback or questions, feel free to let us know.

Kathy

-- 
Kathy Lussier
Project Coordinator
Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
(508) 343-0128 <tel:%28508%29%20343-0128> 
klussier at masslnc.org
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier





 

-- 
Mike Rylander
 | Director of Research and Development
 | Equinox Software, Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source
 | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
 | email:  miker at esilibrary.com
 | web:  http://www.esilibrary.com 

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