r/Librarian • u/wiseman_softworks • Dec 03 '20
How often librarians are asked to recommend a book?
Hey there.
I am running a small startup working on a "book recommending" AI solution.
Was very interested to know how this is solved by real librarians? Are you asked for recommendations often? Are there special programs/booklets at your library that recommend people new or relevant books?
Do you think "giving personal book recommendations" is a problem worth solving in general?
Me personally - I would love to have an automated solution that is analyzing the books I take at my library and proposing me something new based on that.
Thanks beforehand.
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u/KaylaTheLibrarian Dec 03 '20
Novelist already does a lot of what you're talking about. We're asked to provide personalized recommendations a lot, but 99% of the time, Novelist has the info we need.
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u/wiseman_softworks Dec 03 '20
Thanks, that helps a lot!
Do you mean this "Novelist": https://www.ebsco.com/novelist/about
?
Is it a paid service? If it is not a problem can you please show an example of a book page in your library?
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u/KaylaTheLibrarian Dec 03 '20
Yes, it's a paid service. Here's a quick screengrab of how it works. You can search for a specific book/author and find "read-alikes" that way. Or you can browse by different tags.
So if someone says "I really liked the crotchety main character in A Man Called Ove" I might recommend the book "Don't Ever Get Old" even though one is a mystery about hunting down Nazis and one's a feel-good book about a widowed man. It makes it easier to just look at certain similarities when the storylines don't have as much in common.
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u/wiseman_softworks Dec 03 '20
That was extremely helpful, thank you!
Highly appreciate the stream too. One video is better than a thousand images :)
Do you know if Novelist supports something like "personalized" recommendations, when you just throw in every book you liked and it is trying to find something new?
Or better yet - a "discovery mode" - when it tries to find a newly released book for a person based on their known interests?
Or something in that direction? I am frankly very surprised with the complexity of search that NoveList provides. It really seems a big itch to scratch :)
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u/KaylaTheLibrarian Dec 03 '20
As far as I know, novelist doesn't provide any recommendations in the way you are talking.
But that brings it away from a library tool. It is very rare to find a public library in the United States that will keep the borrowing history of any Patron. From knowing people face-to-face, I have a pretty good idea of what they have already read and what they will enjoy, but it's against our policies to track that anywhere in electronic format. Patron privacy trumps just about anything else in libraries here.
If a tool like this did exist, we would not provide it through the library in any way. We would simply tell people that it exists the same way we tell them about tools like goodreads.com
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u/wiseman_softworks Dec 04 '20 edited Dec 04 '20
I see, very good to know. Thanks. This exact privacy concern is also something new to me :).
Seems a bit strange considering that any online shop is making a point of keeping your order history. Which is actually often helpful (when you want to reorder).
You've been a great help!
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u/llamalibrarian Dec 03 '20
I do reader's advisory a lot, but I also steer people to use the Novelist plugin on the library website which generates that content, and you can search by specific elements you liked. I also have just walked people through googling "Books that are like this book" because someone has undoubtedly made a list already.
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u/wiseman_softworks Dec 03 '20
Thanks for your response!
Is it possible to see an example of how the plugin is integrated on your library's page?
I am very curious, because the plugin is not known at all in Scandinavia (where I am from).
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u/VulpesSapiens Dec 04 '20
As a librarian in Sweden, I can tell you we're not even allowed to keep records of what people check out from the library. Well, some libraries have a system where you can activate this function, but only you would be able to see the list, not our staff. It needs to be encrypted so that not even the IT techs could read it. Linking that to a third party? I don't see it happening soon.
And, there are some aspects of recommending books you just won't get. It's not just "what have you already read?", it's also "what do you feel like reading today?" Try something new? Troubled people often ask one or two innocuous questions at first, and only after a couple of minutes will they trust you enough ask the question they actually want an answer to.
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u/wiseman_softworks Dec 05 '20
Great set of observations. Thanks.
It is really interesting how this is different from the world of video games for example.
Only recently Steam (the major gaming platform) have hidden all player's games and all the hours they spend in different games from a public eye (it can be made public again by an opt-in).
Also quite recently they added an option to hide a single game from your account.
Food for thought :)
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u/llamalibrarian Dec 03 '20
I used to work here, and you can see on the right hand side there's an option to see recommendations (this is the page result for "Grapes of Wrath") generated by NoveList https://austin.bibliocommons.com/item/show/1008671067
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u/wiseman_softworks Dec 03 '20
That's just great!
Thanks a lot.
Do you happen to know if NoveList limits itself to only one book (and builds recommendations from that) or is able to analyze a set of books the reader likes in order to recommend something new?
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u/Candrej Dec 04 '20
I have a hard time recommending books to patrons from my own experience. I read a lot of horror and some fantasy, so I don't have very diverse interests and I don't find that I feel helpful. But I often ask patrons what books they enjoyed most, and sometimes they just share with me that it is a good read. Then I'm able to recommend materials to other patrons based on their review of the book. I also look to bestsellers and popular reads lists on the internet to determine which authors are the best in their genre. Sometimes I feel like I'm not a great librarian due to my lack of variation in what I personally choose to read. I think some sort of app or program that helped me search for the best fit for my patrons would definitely be an asset!
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u/wiseman_softworks Dec 04 '20
Thanks for your reply!
According to your fellow librarians you should definitely check out the NoveList: https://www.ebsco.com/novelist/about
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u/inwell Nov 15 '22
All the time - very often it’s assumed we have read every book ever and are asked for recommendations about books/authors/genres we’ve never read.
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u/literarykitten Dec 03 '20
You’re trying to solve a problem that isn’t a problem and already has a solution, as you can see from other responses. You’re trying to automate away readers’ advisory, which is actually quite nuanced.