New web platform to promote literacy by helping children discover new books

A new online platform is allowing primary school children to explore the world of books in order to easily find reading material that best matches their interests and skill levels.

Researchers at the University of Melbourne’s Department of Computing and Information Systems have collaborated with the Melbourne Library Service to launch BookFish, a web platform that recommends children’s books, by using unique technology that allows users to explore content rather than using a direct search.

The platform was developed by Dr Jon Pearce and Associate Professor Shanton Chang in the Department of Computing and Information Systems, with the assistance of Melbourne-based strategic design and technology agency, Involved.

BookFish works by allowing children to nominate their reading preferences by using a series of interactive sliders. Book suggestions are then moved to the top of the page, based on the user’s preferences for content like humour, fantasy, action and historical elements, as well as the difficulty level.

Children can use BookFish to build a reading list from recommended books. They can check whether these books are available to borrow at their local library, where they can then place them on hold. Once they’ve read the books, children can then rate them using the sliders, to benefit other users, or record their own audio reviews of the books.

Dr Pearce said that young children needed to be encouraged to read at a young age, Yet they often do not like to be told by adults what to read, instead following their peers, or simply moving on to the next book in a familiar series.

“Through BookFish, we want to help them find new books that they might otherwise not have discovered – that serendipitous find that you often experience when browsing a physical library shelf, but not so much online,” Dr Pearce said.

The system underpinning the BookFish platform is called iFish, software developed by Dr Pearce and colleagues in the Department of Computing and Information Systems. It is also being applied to various other exploratory contexts.

“iFish is a system to help ‘exploration’. We distinguish that from ‘search’ because when you search, you often know what you are looking for and can then use keywords in a service like Google,” Dr Pearce said.

“However, ‘exploration’ is almost the opposite. You don’t really know what you are after and so you don’t know how to find it. You actually want to expand or broaden what you are looking at, rather than narrowing it down; to  “wallow around” for a while looking at likely possibilities.”

“iFish supports that browsing by linking objects, such as books, to the personal preferences of the individual.”

“A user might not know what they are looking for, but they know the things that they like and if we can put those things in front of them, they are in a much better position to browse.”

Dr Pearce said the response so far from children at selected primary schools had been positive, and the next goal of the project was to extend the BookFish platform to libraries and schools across the state, and to allow for integration of eBooks.

Bookfish is available at http://www.bookfish.net.au.

More information on the iFish exploratory system can be found at the project webpage.