Below is my original e-mail to the founders of whatshouldireadnext.com
regarding strange titles being mixed in with the children's book titles. Following
it is the reply. It would be nice if they could one day afford a separate
site for users to put in children's and YA titles. I figured I'd post the reply
since we'd discussed it several times.
Alma
Alma Ramos-McDermott
MLS Student
Simmons College, Boston MA
2006 ALA Spectrum Scholar
AASL Legislation Committee
2007 AASL Conference Travel Scholarship Winner
Former 21 year NYC elementary teacher
_sunshinealma@aol.com_ (mailto:sunshinealma@aol.com)
My e-mail:
I just found out about your site (whatshouldireadnext.com) yesterday and, as
a budding young adult school librarian, was thrilled to be able to find
readlikes for my students. However, when I posted the information about the site
on a listserve for school librarians, it was revealed to me that the site is
mixing in books about sex on innocent topics like Harry Potter and others. As
a result, the librarians have said they will not use it because the content
can't be trusted.
Here are a few of the comments that were posted about it:
I decided to give whatshouldireadnext dot com a try.I put in Alex Rider and
Horowitz as my search (great favorite in my Middle School). One of the
suggestions was Skinny Dip by Hiaasen... I don't think it's one I want to
recommend
to my MS boys. Part of the problem is that Hiaasen has now written books for
YA readers as well as adult readers. I think his books Flush or Hoot would
be great on the list. But his book, Skinny Dip, is an adult novel.
I was considering linking this site to my library website, but when several
"unreliable" for MS student titles come up in searches, I won't be able to
tacitly "endorse" the site by linking it to our school library website.
When I put in a search for Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot there are lots of
good choices but included among them is Three Essays on the Theory of
Sexuality by Sigmund Freud. It's totally inappropriate for our readers. I'm not
sure
how that one got in there, but it seems as if the site is giving some valid
choices, but also throwing in at least one inappropriate choice (often with
the word sex(y) or allusion to sex). It makes me wonder who's designed the
sight and what is the purpose.
Is there a way to more closely monitor what is being put onto the site?
Thanks,
Alma
The response:
Hi Alma
Many thanks for your email - and thanks for using the site.
You raise some interesting points.
I'm afraid there's no way we can absolutely guarantee that 'inappropriate'
results won't come up. The reason is that all of the recommendations are
generated by an algorithm from lists of books created by real users - it does seem
odd to me that someone might list Freud's essays on sexuality along with a
children's book, for example, but not impossible - I guess it might have been
an academic, say, who created a list where both appeared.
Our algorithm doesn't consider the content of books in any way, because we
don't use any categorisation system - people create lists of books they like
and the program aggregates all that data to establish which
books appear with which other books the most often, though with an extra
weighting system to stop Harry Potter and The da Vinci Code coming up in every
single list of recommendations!
What I'm really saying is: we're only as good as what people put in. On the
whole this means that *most* users find it great for getting general
recommendations - and if you put in a book from a specific genre such as science
fiction or romance, you're likely to get other books of a similar kind, because
lots of people will have listed several books within that genre. But you'll
also get a couple of recommendations from different genres, which at least
helps to widen people's horizons - this flexibility is probably what has allowed
the odd results you've found to creep in.
Because the site is aimed at the public at large, children's books don't
feature all that strongly (except where adults love them!), and it would be
unrealistic to assume that only 'appropriate' results would come up every single
time. Short of censoring results, which we can't really consider, I'm afraid
this is the compromise we have to work with - as I say, it works for a
majority of users.
I fear innocence in books is in the eye of the beholder somewhat, too - some
religious groups regard Harry Potter as evil rather than innocent; and one
might argue that a young reader would find the gentle sexual development of
Harry throughout the books as infinitely more titillating than the dull essays
of Freud!
Your thoughts do make me wonder whether there might be scope to develop a
separate version of the site which only includes material for children or young
adults, though at the moment we don't have the budget to
develop something like that - we do offer this service entirely for free and
the only money we make from it just about covers the costs of hosting the
site on the web!
Sorry I can't offer more - though I can certainly reassure you 100% that
there's nothing sinister going on with regard to subjects related to sex coming
up - it's just the occasional side-effect of a mass of user-generated data.
Hope this helps explains things a little.
Kind regards
Andrew, Thoughtplay
************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please note: All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law.
You can prevent most e-mail filters from deleting LM_NET postings
by adding LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU to your e-mail address book.
To change your LM_NET status, e-mail to: listserv@listserv.syr.edu
In the message write EITHER: 1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL
3) SET LM_NET MAIL 4) SET LM_NET DIGEST * Allow for confirmation.
* LM_NET Help & Information: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/
* LM_NET Archive: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/archive/
* EL-Announce with LM_NET Select: http://lm-net.info/
* LM_NET Supporters: http://www.eduref.org/lm_net/ven.html
* LM_NET Wiki: http://lmnet.wikispaces.com/
--------------------------------------------------------------------
LM_NET
Mailing List Home