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
eha...@georgialibraries.org
www.georgialibraries.org
www.georgialibraries.org/pines
-----Original Message-----
From: open-ils-general-boun...@list.georgialibraries.org
[mailto:open-ils-general-boun...@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
tmcca...@georgialibraries.org
----- Original Message -----
From: "Vanya Jauhal" <vanyajau...@gmail.com>
To: "Evergreen Discussion Group"
<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 >
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 > 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
tmcca...@georgialibraries.org
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rogan Hamby" < rogan.ha...@yclibrary.net >
To: "Evergreen Discussion Group" <
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 >
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
