A cross‐language personalized recommendation model in digital libraries

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop a cross‐language personalized recommendation model based on web log mining, which can recommend academic articles, in different languages, to users according to their demands.

Design/methodology/approach

The proposed model takes advantage of web log data archived in digital libraries and learns user profiles by means of integration analysis of a user's multiple online behaviors. Moreover, keyword translation was carried out to eliminate language dissimilarity between user and item profiles. Finally, article recommendation can be achieved using various existing algorithms.

Findings

The proposed model can recommend articles in different languages to users according to their demands, and the integration analysis of multiple online behaviors can help to better understand a user's interests.

Practical implications

This study has a significant implication for digital libraries in non‐English countries, since English is the most popular language in current academic articles and it is a very common phenomenon for users in these countries to obtain literatures presented by more than one language. Furthermore, this approach is also useful for other text‐based item recommendation systems.

Originality/value

A lot of research work has been done in the personalized recommendation area, but few works have discussed the recommendation problem under multiple linguistic circumstances. This paper deals with cross‐language recommendation and, moreover, the proposed model puts forward an integration analysis method based on multiple online behaviors to understand users' interests, which can provide references for other recommendation systems in the digital age.

Citation

Lai, Y. and Zeng, J. (2013), "A cross‐language personalized recommendation model in digital libraries", The Electronic Library, Vol. 31 No. 3, pp. 264-277. https://doi.org/10.1108/EL-08-2011-0126