7. Measuring the impact range of stock circulating number of unique titles (bib#) borrowed per calendar year (2009 figure is predicted) borrowing suggestions added to catalogue at end of 2005
8. Measuring the impact number of books borrowed average number of books borrowed per active borrower per calendar year (2009 predicted)
1) Using the historical circulation data, stored by the Library Management System, we were able to generate Amazon style “people who borrowed this, also borrowed” recommendations 2) As most borrowing is driven by reading lists, the suggestions tend to be relevant and on-topic
1) Once a user has logged into the library catalogue, we’re able to generate personalised suggestions based on their recent borrowing history
1) By analysing what students on individual courses borrow, and cross-referencing it with the Dewey classifications of those items, we’re able to create a “new book” list that (hopefully) only contains new items that are on interest to the students on that course
1) In a similar way to the book suggestions, we’re able to use data collected from our Link Resolver to generate journal title suggestions 2) This is a really useful way to letting students know that the library subscribes to a wide range of electronic journals and hopefully they’ll explore the collection
1) Many of the features we’ve added to the library catalogue have been in place since late 2005, so we’ve been able to monitor the impact those features have had on the long-term borrowing trend
1) Since introducing borrowing suggestions to the library catalogue, we’ve seen a dramatic year-on-year increase in the range of library stock circulating each year 2) In 2005, approximately one-quarter of the library stock was being borrowed each year – this had now increased to over one-third of the stock in 2009
1) We’ve also seen a similar trend in the average number of library books borrowed by students each year – increasing from around 14 books prior to 2005, to 16 books in 2009
1) In December 2008, Huddersfield released aggregated and anonymised usage data for around 2 million borrowing transactions, along with recommendation data for 37,000 book titles 2) To try and promote use, the data was released under an Open Data Commons Licence, which places the data into the Public Domain