The user-centered design of a recommender system for a universal library catalogue
Simon Wakeling · 2012
This paper describes a collaborative project between the University of Sheffield's iSchool and OCLC (an international library cooperative), the aim of which is to develop a prototype recommender system for WorldCat.org, the aggregated catalogue of OCLC's member libraries. This paper describes a user-centered approach, utilizing both qualitative and quantitative methods, which aims to establish how and why users engage with library catalogues and WorldCat.org in particular, whether there is a need for recommendations in the library domain, and if so what type of recommendations best support the information-seeking needs of users. An outline of the proposed methodology is provided, along with a report on work completed to date. An analysis of UK library catalogues shows the prevalence of recommender systems to be very low, while initial results from focus group interviews and a pop-up survey show a significant demand for recommendations from two key user-groups (students and academics).