Chapter 86. Statistical Popularity Badges

Table of Contents

Popularity Rating and Calculation
Creating Popularity Badges
New Global Flags
Sorting by Popularity in the OPAC
Popularity Badge Example

Statistical Popularity Badges allow libraries to set popularity parameters that define popularity badges, which bibliographic records can earn if they meet the set criteria. Popularity badges can be based on factors such as circulation and hold activity, bibliographic record age, or material type. The popularity badges that a record earns are used to adjust catalog search results to display more popular titles (as defined by the badges) first. Within the OPAC there are two new sort options called "Most Popular" and "Popularity Adjusted Relevance" which will allow users to sort records based on the popularity assigned by the popularity badges.

Popularity Rating and Calculation

Popularity badge parameters define the criteria a bibliographic record must meet to earn the badge, as well as which bibliographic records are eligible to earn the badge. For example, the popularity parameter "Circulations Over Time" can be configured to create a badge that is applied to bibliographic records for DVDs. The badge can be configured to look at circulations within the last 2 years, but assign more weight or popularity to circulations from the last 6 months.

Multiple popularity badges may be applied to a bibliographic record. For each applicable popularity badge, the record will be rated on a scale of 1-5, where a 5 indicates the most popular. Evergreen will then assign an overall popularity rating to each bibliographic record by averaging all of the popularity badge points earned by the record. The popularity rating is stored with the record and will be used to rank the record within search results when the popularity badge is within the scope of the search. The popularity badges are recalculated on a regular and configurable basis by a cron job. Popularity badges can also be recalculated by an administrator directly on the server.