Personalization and Usage Data in Academic Libraries: an Exploratory Study

Personalization is a service pattern for ensuring proactive information delivery tailored to an individual based on learned or perceived needs of the person. It was credited as a remedy for information explosion especially in the academic environment and its importance to libraries was described to the extent of justifying their existence. As the result, there have been numerous novel approaches or technical specifications forwarded for realization of personalization in libraries. However, literature shows that the implementation of the services in libraries is minimal which implies the need for thorough analysis and discussion of issues underlying the practicality of this service in the library environment. This book explores issues that determine personalized services in academic libraries and also provides recommendations for successful lunching of such services in the library environment.