Library personalized recommendation service method based on improved association rules

Purpose Nowadays, database management system has been applied in library management, and a great number of data about readers' visiting history to resources have been accumulated by libraries. A lot of important information is concealed behind such data. The purpose of this paper is to use a typical data mining (DM) technology named an association rule mining model to find out borrowing rules of readers according to their borrowing records, and to recommend other booklists for them in a personalized way, so as to increase utilization rate of data resources at library. Design/methodology/approach Association rule mining algorithm is applied to find out borrowing rules of readers according to their borrowing records, and to recommend other booklists for them in a personalized way, so as to increase utilization rate of data resources at library. Findings Through an analysis on record of book borrowing by readers, library manager can recommend books that may be interested by a reader based on historical borrowing records or current book-borrowing records of the reader. Research limitations/implications If many different categories of book-borrowing problems are involved, it will result in large length of encoding as well as giant searching space. Therefore, future research work may be considered in the following aspects: introduce clustering method; and apply association rule mining method to procurement of book resources and layout of books. Practical implications The paper provides a helpful inspiration for Big Data mining and software development, which will improve their efficiency and insight on users' behavior and psychology. Social implications The paper proposes a framework to help users understand others' behavior, which will aid them better take part in group and community with more contribution and delightedness. Originality/value DM technology has been used to discover information concealed behind Big Data in library; the library personalized recommendation problem has been analyzed and formulated deeply; and a method of improved association rules combined with artificial bee colony algorithm has been presented.