Library Big Data, the Beginning of a Dialogue for Change

Library Big Data, the Beginning of a Dialogue for Change

Library big data service supports scientific decision making based on data by linking library data (users, books, book lending) collected by 849 public libraries and small libraries in Korea and public data (bookstores, geographic data, statistics etc.) collected from outside the library. Being launched in 2014, as of 2019, the library big data service collected 1.2 billion data records. While each library analyzed statistics they collected individually for library management previously, by utilizing big data, libraries can serve as intelligent libraries, be operated more reasonably and provide user-customized services. Through Solomon, a system for supporting librarians’ decision making using big data, librarians can establish book acquisition policies by analyzing book borrowers and borrowed books and offer customized book curation services considering users’ reading preference based on analysis of book lending status. Data for Library (www.data4library.kr), a website for sharing collected data, supports librarians, researchers and users’ research and development of new contents and services. The website is providing a wide range of analysis results (analysis of most borrowed books, books showing figures revealing a rapid rise in borrowing etc.) and contributing in promoting reading culture. In addition, the website shares data through API for anyone to use, so that data can be utilized in various ways in the library field and private sector (especially startups). The poster introduces a variety of cases of utilizing big data.