[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Awesome Box Integration

Fri Sep 26 15:28:32 EDT 2014

Kathy,

I think that's a good point.  I think Rogan and others have cautioned about
feature creep also.  I think in the end I would be happy to first to see
integration with Awesome Box and then as a second phase some of the other
issues.

On Fri, Sep 26, 2014 at 3:05 PM, Kathy Lussier <klussier at masslnc.org> wrote:

> Hi all,
>
>  Basically, I wouldn't let the quality of genre headings in your catalog
>> determine whether Awesome Box uses genre headings. Too much in the history
>> of genre use makes clean headings difficult. I would, however, begin
>> considering how to clean up those headings so Awesome Box could be fully
>> implemented.
>>
>
> I just want to throw out a reminder that full implementation of "Awesome
> Box" is really collecting the data for items that have been returned to an
> awesome box in the library and sending that information along to
> http://awesomebox.io/. I think Vanya has some good ideas to then use that
> same data in Evergreen in other ways, which is great and may start a
> foundation for even more development. But, in my mind, these other
> components are gravy. Exciting gravy, but gravy nonetheless.
>
> Kathy
>
> Kathy Lussier
> Project Coordinator
> Massachusetts Library Network Cooperative
> (508) 343-0128
> klussier at masslnc.org
> Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/kmlussier
> #evergreen IRC: kmlussier
>
> On 9/26/2014 2:22 PM, Hardy, Elaine wrote:
>
>> Genre headings can be corrected so that they are current to the thesauri
>> your library uses. LCGFT and GSAFD  authority records are available, for
>> example.  However, authorities for genre headings is  relatively recent
>> and,
>> as a result, many libraries did not retain or add genre headings to bib
>> records in the past. Of course, adding subject headings to fiction is
>> relatively recent as well. Some older fiction titles may just have genre
>> headings, if anything at all.
>>
>> Copy cataloging should not make a difference in whether headings are used
>> correctly or whether your library chooses to use genre headings. Although
>> I
>> suppose your bibliographic utility will. If you obtain most of your
>> records
>> from LC or OCLC, then certainly newer titles will have extensive genre
>> headings. With the advent of LCGFT, more catalogers do add genre headings
>> to
>> bib records. GSAFD use was spotty but has increased. What could make the
>> difference is whether you use vendor cataloging since your library might
>> have to pay extra for use and maintenance of genre headings. Particularly
>> if
>> you use the vendor as a source for your title records.
>>
>> If your catalogers are afforded the time to correct and add genre
>> headings,
>> then whether they copy catalog or create all title records originally
>> won't
>> matter. What their process and procedures are does.
>>
>> If your genre headings have not been kept up to date (which is likely true
>> of all of us), then I suggest cleaning them up as much as possible if
>> Awesome box ratings will include them. And approaching cataloging staff to
>> see if including use and maintenance of genre headings can become part of
>> their workflow. Keep in mind that, not only could it increase the time it
>> takes for items to get to the shelf, if you out source, it might increase
>> costs. If you use a vendor authority service, genre heading maintenance
>> may
>> already be a part of the service.
>>
>> I'm not sure that beginning with broad categories would solve any problems
>> since anything other than literary form (fiction, nonfiction, poetry,
>> drama,
>> etc) is going to be in, or not, a 655. Again, whether LitF in the fixed
>> filed is coded properly depends on the quality of your bib records. Some
>> of
>> the prePINES records have very little coding of any kind in the fixed
>> fields -- about 200,000 out of 1.7 million or so bib records.
>>
>> Basically, I wouldn't let the quality of genre headings in your catalog
>> determine whether Awesome Box uses genre headings. Too much in the history
>> of genre use makes clean headings difficult. I would, however, begin
>> considering how to clean up those headings so Awesome Box could be fully
>> implemented.
>>
>>
>> Elaine
>>
>> J. Elaine Hardy
>> PINES & Collaborative Projects 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
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org
>> [mailto:open-ils-general-bounces at list.georgialibraries.org] On Behalf Of
>> McCanna, Terran
>> Sent: Thursday, September 25, 2014 4:33 PM
>> To: Evergreen Discussion Group
>> Subject: Re: [OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] Awesome Box Integration
>>
>> 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
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

-- 
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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