Library Personalization Systems: an Indian experience

摘要

Personalization of library resources is projected as a viaBle alternative to tide over the information explosion and to conserve the time of users for more productive intellectual tasks. Personalization needs sufficient electronic content at one's site as well as suitable mechanisms to identify the user through his or her profile, selectively search the content that matches the user profile, and arrange and present it to the user in an appealing fashion The different components of a content personalization system include: 'Content Serving System' to host electronic content beyond a critical mass, 'User Interest Management System' to manage dynamic user profiles, 'Search Engine' to automatically mat^h content with profiles and 'Personalized Content Delivery' mechanisms for delivering matched results to the user Technological advancements made by web enabled computing coupled with continued user interest to gather information resources available on the web led many popular portals to bring in the concept of content personalization suiting varied user interests. A few such initiatives are explained. Library personalization projects like MyLibrary in different university libraries in advanced countries are discussed To explore the efficacy of library personalization systems in a developing country, the SAI personalization prototype developed in the Central Library of the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur is described in detail.Keywords: library websites; library personalization systems; Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur; IndiaIntroductionLibraries since time immemorial have attempted to collect, organize and disseminate information resources of interest to their clients. They use a variety of tools and techniques to effectively conduct these tasks and devise a host of services to support the varied requirements of their users. There were difficulties in achieving one-to-one mapping of information resources and users in the print environment since options to connect the two basically needed surrogates like card, indexes, documentation lists etc. The onset of computer and information technology enabled this mapping to be more efficient, especially because of the ease with which a document can be indexed and represented using multiple terms. The same functionality emerged for representing a user's interests, and in most cases having both in the same computerized system facilitated the easy linking of relevant sources with prospective users. With widespread availability of full text information resources such as electronic books, electronic journals and Internet resources, the significance of computer based linking of sources and users has become more pronounced. The accessibility of electronic resources also tempted users to satisfy their information needs beyond the four walls of the library. These two virtues of electronic information and the presence of information technology tools prompted libraries in the advanced countries to opt for personalization developed in the Central library of the Indian Institute of Technology,Kharagpur is described in detail.