Library Favorites and Resource Modeling

Abstract

Web site visitors to the University of Michigan library can save some kinds of resources (catalog items, databases, online journals, and article citations) to their user account for future use. Users can optionally organize these resources into categories (the system recommends courses they are taking and categories they have previously used, but individuals can create any categories they like).

In this session, attendees will learn about our design process (including user studies, design elements, and Drupal coding) and the usage of the tool. The pool of saved items becomes a rich data source for providing anonymized, aggregated data to library staff and site visitors. We will conclude by exploring some of the possible uses of this data, including building supplemental reading lists for specific courses.