A prototype WWW literature recommendation system for digital libraries

This article describes a service for providing literature recommendations, which is part of a networked digital library project whose principal goal is to develop technologies for supporting digital services. The proposed literature recommendation system makes use of the Web usage logs of a literature digital library. The recommendation framework consists of three sequential steps: data preparation of the Web usage log, discovery of article associations, and article recommendations. We discuss several design alternatives for conducting these steps. These alternatives are evaluated using the Web logs of our university’s electronic thesis and dissertation (ETD) system. The proposed literature recommendation system has been incorporated into our university’s ETD system, and is currently operational.