[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Awesome Box Integration

Thu Sep 25 18:40:54 EDT 2014

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.hamby at 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 <
> tmccanna at 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
>> tmccanna at georgialibraries.org
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Vanya Jauhal" <vanyajauhal at gmail.com>
>> To: "Evergreen Discussion Group" <
>> open-ils-general at 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.hamby at 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 <
>> tmccanna at 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
>> tmccanna at georgialibraries.org
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Rogan Hamby" < rogan.hamby at yclibrary.net >
>> To: "Evergreen Discussion Group" <
>> open-ils-general at 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 < vanyajauhal at 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
tjspindler at gmail.com

*P**   Go Green - **Save a tree! Please don't print this e-mail unless it's
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