Jim Hahn, Orientation Services and Environments Librarian and Associate Professor at the University Library, has received a Campus Research Board Award to fund his proposal, “Research and Development of an Intelligent Personalized Recommendation Platform for Library Accounts.” Funds will support undergraduate assistants who will help design front-end views for users of the resulting recommendation system.

In the course of the grant, Hahn’s research team will develop a machine learning platform for personalized recommendations of library content. Few such systems exist for library user accounts, and this would be the first to take advantage of machine learning. The platform will recommend available items based on current interests expressed in items currently checked out to the user, items the user has added to a favorite list, and data mining sourced from when an item in a user account is renewed.

Hahn’s previous research has included work on mobile applications and technology services in libraries, and has particularly investigated wayfinding and recommendation services. He and his research team recently published “Topic Space: Rapid Prototyping a Mobile Augmented Reality Recommendation App,” which reported development of a recommender app that suggests items related to a particular book of interest on a library shelf.

The Illinois Campus Research Board funds promising tenured and tenure-track faculty research. A list of previous awards and project abstracts can be found at the CRB website.