[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] ***SPAM*** Re: Awesome Box Integration

[Ruth Frasur]

I don't have anything of value to add to this other than while, of course,
I love the idea of reader recommendations and Awesome Box integration in
any form, I also think there would HAVE to be some type of anonymizing
(sp?) of patron data.  I don't think this is impossible BUT, as Rogan has
said, there is a definite danger of project creep.  My suggestion, fwiw, is
to find some first/second step for Awesome Box integration and focus more
on building a foundation (that may or may not have truly visible/useful
features for end users) on which others (or other projects) could expand.

On Thu, Sep 25, 2014 at 11:56 PM, Rogan Hamby <rogan.hamby at yclibrary.net>
wrote:

> I'm concerned with project creep as well as I noted in one of early
> missives.  If this is stored independent of patron data (which actually I
> think it should) then I think we should also track circs since the feature
> was turned on so it could say "3 out of 4" people found it awesome.
>
> Stepping back a bit to recommendations and anonymizing records, we don't
> anonymize historical circs.  We don't expose that data and take staff level
> access to it pretty seriously.  Due to varying state and county regulations
> dictating minimum record retentions we're still at least 2 years out from
> being to safely wipe our oldest records.  Maybe more.
>
> And anonymizing it closes certain opportunities.  Some are mundane like
> addressing old conflicts and billing questions but those can be big in
> their own right.  As the circ manager who talks to the upset patron I may
> have a different point of view on that.  :)
>
> Analyzing circulation patterns is far more interesting though and I am
> long term interested in recommendations.  In the age of Anazin, Netflix and
> everyone else this is not just valuable but expected.  It's perhaps the
> patron request I hear most.
>
> Coupled with some holds features it would be a great great boon for home
> bound services which I feel are a critical function of libraries, at least
> in my state where it's a strong traditional service.  I assume elsewhere as
> well though I know mileage varies.
>
> And it was the building block of several functions that GA PINES
> identified as critical for TBS support during the Loblolly conference.  We
> may never fully support TBS programs in Evergreen but I thought GA PINES
> collected a lot of great ideas and input there and would hate to discard
> that.
>
> On Thursday, September 25, 2014, Kathy Lussier <klussier at masslnc.org>
> wrote:
>
>>  Hi all,
>>
>> Great discussion so far!
>>
>> We had a bit of a discussion about privacy concerns in IRC after Terran
>> sent her original message. One approach we were discussing was storing the
>> awesome tags in an anonymous fashion, except in cases where patrons have
>> opted into saving their circ history. In those cases, the user has already
>> consented to having this information saved and could have a more enhanced
>> experience with the recommendation engine. Others who were part of the
>> discussion could elaborate or correct me if I'm not articulating the ideas
>> correctly. The discussion can be found at
>> http://irc.evergreen-ils.org/evergreen/2014-09-25#i_126632.
>>
>> In relation to genres, Vanya said:
>>
>> Maybe, as a solution to that, we can have a hierarchical algorithm for
>> categorizing. In other words, we can allow the administrator to decide
>> whether the categorization comes all the way down to genres, or just takes
>> into account the overall weight of the user's awesome tag.
>>
>>
>> I like the idea of making this configurable, because there may be systems
>> where data identifying genre is a little more clear cut. Better yet, how
>> about if we allow an Evergreen site to define the categories that are used.
>> Some sites may use the MARC fixed fields for fiction/non-fiction. Other
>> sites may decided that values stored in the 655 MARC field work for them.
>>
>> Is there something already exists in Evergreen that we could leverage for
>> this purpose? My first thought was MVF.
>>
>> I do have one general recommendation speaking with my OPW admin hat on.
>> It really is a  general recommendation for any of the OPW candidates who
>> might be following along. I mentioned in IRC today that I'm not a
>> developer, but I've managed a lot of development projects, and one thing I
>> try to watch out for is project creep. As we continue to talk about the
>> project and think of new configuration options to make it a more flexible
>> project, it can also become a very large project that isn't as easy to
>> manage.
>>
>> Therefore, as you think through how you plan to implement the project, I
>> recommend breaking it up into distinct milestones. You might want to start
>> with smaller tasks as you ease into the project (e.g. collecting the
>> awesome tags and sending them along to the Awesome Box site), and then move
>> on to the larger components once you become more familiar with the system.
>>
>> Kathy
>>
>>
>> Kathy Lussier
>> Project Coordinator
>> Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative(508) 343-0128klussier at masslnc.org
>> Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier
>> #evergreen IRC: kmlussier
>>
>> On 9/25/2014 6:40 PM, Tim Spindler wrote:
>>
>> 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 really necessary.*
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
> --
>
> 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>
>
>


-- 
Ruth Frasur
Director of the Historic(ally Awesome) Hagerstown - Jefferson Township
Library
10 W. College Street in Hagerstown, Indiana (47346)
p (765) 489-5632; f (765) 489-5808

Our Kickin' Website <http://hagerstownlibrary.org>  Our Rockin' Facebook
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