UBLIN, Ohio, USA, 14 June 2010—The University of Sheffield, in collaboration with OCLC Research, has been awarded funding from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council to explore a library catalogue recommender system based on the requirements and preferences of users.
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, establishing user needs and preferences before mining the bibliographic data within the WorldCat database to retrieve similar journals, books, digital media and video records that may be of interest. As the world's largest library catalogue, WorldCat allows the researchers to experiment with various, large-scale sources of evidence on which to base recommendations, thereby not restricting the recommender system to the holdings and circulation activities of a single institution.
"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.
Results from this project will be of great benefit to academics, practitioners and library users alike. Professor Sheila Corrall, Head of The Information School and Professor of Librarianship & Information Management, University of Sheffield, explains what the award means to her: "The Information School at Sheffield is delighted to be working with OCLC on this groundbreaking project. We are also grateful to the Arts & Humanities Research Council for funding our unique collaboration to provide a really exciting opportunity for an outstanding student."
More information about the funding for the studentship is available at http://ir.shef.ac.uk/cloughie/resources/ahrc-cda2010.html.
About OCLC
Founded in 1967, OCLC is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organisation dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world's information and reducing library costs. More than 72,000 libraries in 171 countries have used OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalogue, lend, preserve and manage library materials. OCLC and its member libraries cooperatively produce and maintain WorldCat, the world's largest online database for discovery of library resources. Search WorldCat on the Web at www.worldcat.org.
OCLC also incorporates one of the largest research enterprises in the world devoted exclusively to the challenges facing libraries in a rapidly changing information technology environment. OCLC Research supports the RLG Partnership—a global group of research libraries, archives, museums and other cultural memory institutions that work collaboratively to design their future and more effectively serve users of information and collections. For more information, visit the OCLC Web site at www.oclc.org.
About the University of Sheffield
Founded as the Sheffield School of Medicine in 1828, and granted University Charter in 1905, the University of Sheffield is a member of the Russell Group, the UK’s leading Universities. It has over 24,000 students from 131 countries, and almost 6,000 staff, and has produced five Nobel Prize winners.
The University's research partners and clients include Boeing, Rolls Royce, Unilever, Boots, AstraZeneca, GSK, ICI, Slazenger, and many more household names, as well as UK and overseas government agencies and charitable foundations. International partnerships include Worldwide Universities Network (USA, Europe and China) and its partnership with Leeds and York Universities (the White Rose Consortium) has combined research power greater than that of either Oxford or Cambridge. More information can be found at www.shef.ac.uk/.
About The Information School
Founded in 1963 as the Postgraduate School of Librarianship, and later known as the Department of Information Studies, the Information School is the country's top library and information management department, ranked first in the field in every Research Assessment Exercise carried out. For more information, visit www.shef.ac.uk/is/.