OCLC Research Scientist Lynn Silipigni Connaway and U. Sheffield (UK) researchers awarded funding to explore Library Catalog Recommender System
DUBLIN, Ohio, USA, 14 June 2010—The collaborative project, which will be based on the requirements and preferences of users, has been funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council. The joint Doctoral Award will pay for a dedicated Ph.D. student to work for three years with Dr. Paul Clough and Ms. Barbara Sen, lecturers in The Information School at the University of Sheffield, and Dr. Lynn Silipigni Connaway at OCLC, investigating the applicability of the recommender concept to the domain of the library catalogue.
Recommender systems suggest items to users that are likely to be of interest to them but have not yet been considered. Sites like Amazon.com use similar systems to great effect.
The goal of the project is to follow a “user-centered” approach to the development of a library catalogue recommender system, and involves mining the bibliographic data within the WorldCat database to retrieve records that may be of interest.
"We are very pleased to see the collaboration between OCLC Research and the University of Sheffield result in this interesting shared project. We look forward to building on this success in ways that advance library practice and research," said Lorcan Dempsey, OCLC Chief Strategist and Vice President, OCLC Research.
More information
Full OCLC News Release
http://www.oclc.org/news/releases/2010/201031.htm
U. Sheffield Information School
http://www.shef.ac.uk/is/
Posting for funded Ph.D. student position
http://ir.shef.ac.uk/cloughie/resources/ahrc-cda2010.html
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