I had a few more thoughts on this I wanted to get down. First off, since I coded the feature, I’ve personally been a little disappointed with the recommendations I’ve been getting. This largely has to do with the way I use the library. I would say that the majority of what I read is from my own bookshelf not the library. Definitely in the recent past (which is what the recommendations operate on), in terms of fiction (again, what the recommendations operate on), I’ve mostly been taking out graphic novels with the odd mystery or general fiction thrown in. As such, most of my recs are for more comic books. However, I’ve been finding the recs are largely for superhero stuff and manga, two things I do not read. I understand why this is happening though…of course, there are people who read these types of comics as well as the type I read.
But since I did my monthly circ data load on Friday, I’ve actually gotten a couple useful recs. First I got this one which I’m going to check out and then today this one which also looks good.
I’m starting to rethink the frequency of dumping the circ data. The original rationale for monthly was with a 3 week loan period, it would probably catch most circ stats and would not be a big time drain for me. However, the whole process only takes 15 minutes or so and I know that we are currently missing some circs since I am getting recommendations for some things I have definitely taken out. I’m thinking twice a month or even weekly might be the way to go. I even had an idea to add dvd recommendations to the mix but with a one day loan period, that would requires daily dumps. Without being able to automate the process, that’s not going to happen.
In any case, even if we don’t end up turning on this feature, I’ll probably keep it running on the staging port just for my own purposes as it’s already proven itself as a source of reading recommendations for me! 
