EEXCESS - Toolbox for managing and
disseminating digital library content
emtacl15
Timo Borst, Tamara Pianos and Christin Seifert
Trondheim, 21st April 2015

Agenda
• Why
• Vision
• How
• Who
• What is in it for you?
2

Why? – The Current Situation
• A lot of high quality content is freely available
on the internet
• However, users usually do not access all of the
relevant content, because
– they do not know it exists, or
– do not know the specialized search engines or
databases they need to access, or
– do not have the domain knowledge to formulate
appropriate search queries.
3

Why? – The Current Situation
• Content provider strategies:
– Dedicated portals
– Search engine optimization
– Social Network Marketing
• User strategies:
– Use major search engines
– Use Wikipedia…
4

Why?
• The project offers a solution for the so called
hidden “long tail” of the internet:
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Special interest:
e.g. image of a
specific coin in
museum database
…
Madonna
Michael Jackson
…

In other words
6
Usage
Some
quality
content
In order to:
• Discover new information
• Verify facts
• Enrich existing information

What it would look like in a bookstore:
The most relevant book for you
7

EEXCESS Vision
8

Vision: take the content to the user
9

How?
• EEXCESS injects both related and - according
to a user’s profile - relevant content into
existing and regularly visited web channels
using personalized recommendation
strategies.
More interesting
stuff on this topic
and related fields
from museums,
libraries, portals…

How: Suggest relevant and personalized
content to users – wherever they are
11

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How: Suggest relevant content to users –
wherever they are

EEXCESS Chrome Browser Extension:
Right now optimized for wikipedia
13

…but works on other websites as well
14

Behind the Scenes: Toolbox - Components
• user profile component: observes user behavior and generates a
personalized user profile
• federated recommender: retrieves related resources from
distributed (library) content exposed and accessed via content APIs.
• user interface components: collect relevant information according
to the user profile and present retrieved resources to the user in a
smooth, non-disruptive manner.
• data integration component: harmonizes the meta-data of the
content-providers to allow the federated recommender unified
access to all resources independent of their origin.
• privacy preservation component: ensures EEXCESS users privacy
with respect to collection of personal data and possible attacks of
user identification.
15

Some Current Features
16
Explore the results
display the results in a timeline
edit your profile - privacy

Privacy
17

Status Quo - Prototypes
• Browser Extension
for Google Chrome
• WordPress Plugin
• Google Docs Plugin
18
= proof-of-concept
= prototype with most features
= proof-of-concept
More information
code on Github

Plans for the Future
• Improve recommendations
• Improve prototypes, more visualization etc.
• Interactive personalized ranking options
• Moodle plugin
• More test-bed and content partners
• …
19

Who? - Partners
20

21
Banquet of the Amsterdam Civic Guard by Bartholomeus van der Helst
vangod-by-eexcess-team

What is in it for you?
• Make your content visible through eexcess
• Use eexcess-tools in your libraries
22

Take home messages
• EEXCESS wants to bring the content to the
user, not the user to the content
• Prototypes are available but project and tools
are not finished yet
• Participate if you like!
23

Take home questions:
„A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush“
24
h
Is it?

Interested in becoming content/test partner?
OR
25
Contact me during
emtacl
Go to
eexcess.eu
Content Providers

Questions and Contact
TAMARA PIANOS
t.pianos@zbw.eu
www.zbw.eu
Slideshare
Mendeley
ResearchGate
www.eexcess.eu
Find me here:
Twitter: @taps69