Assignment Idea: July 2010 Archives

I was demoing Find it today and showed a record with a bx recommender box. The students (graduate level) were interested and wanted to know more...comments like "it is just like shopping" "like amazon" were mentioned and the response was positive but I didn't know what level of detail to go in to...if any--is it so obvious that no explaination is needed? Anybody read any articles or blogs on how to teach about this?

Here is some information (in librarianese) on it form the wiki:

"bX is a service available from Ex Libris that generates recommendations for searchers. bX generates these recommendations based on actual use of link resolver services, such as SFX, using anonymized data contributed by institutions from all over the world. Recommendations can be presented in multiple interfaces including the FindIt menu and MNCAT Plus. More information about the service and how it works can be found on the Ex Libris website.

The service makes connections between articles as searchers discover and access them, so it is continually being refined and improved as more people use it and contribute their data to the system. We are still evaluating the implications of adding our own data to the larger pool, so currently we are not contributing our data. In the meantime, however, our users and staff can take full advantage of this service"

More on https://wiki.lib.umn.edu/ET/BX

Any thoughts? Also any plans to try to simplify the Find it Menu?