The bX™ Recommender is a new service available to CSU libraries that taps into the power of the networked scholarly community to generate recommendations based on article usage.  

It represents the growing recognition of the importance of user-driven content and an important step in the convergence of Web 2.0 and the scholarly world. 

The bX service is brought to you by the same team that created SFX and the OpenURL standard, a collaboration of Ex Libris and the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) renowned researchers Johan Bollen and Herbert Van de Sompel. From 2005 forward California State University participated in the initial bX development effort with Ex Libris and the Digital Library Research & Prototyping Team at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Empower Your Library Users with Web 2.0 Recommendations

Web-savvy users are well accustomed to usage-based recommendations.  Found on commercial websites such as Amazon.com, these recommendations have become highly popular with users, who continue to find them both relevant and valuable. 

Focused solely on the scholarly domain, bX recommendations are based on actual usage data.  

It is the first service to provide highly granular recommendations that point to specific scholarly articles.

The bX Recommender, your library steps up to serve your patrons with a valuable tool that meets user expectations for up-to-date, Web 2.0-type services, providing recommendations that are:

• Relevant: based on the analysis of millions of transactions related to the context of the user’s work
• Up-to-Date: include current scholarly material down to the article level
• Easily Accessible: tightly integrated into scholarly search results

bX is available to CSU libraries now as a service in SFX. bX recommendations are also integrated with results of searches in the Xerxes/MetaLib platform.

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