Toy recommendations

Turn the platform's rating and borrowing data into gentle nudges — for members choosing what to borrow next, and for your library deciding what to buy or retire. All heuristics, no black box.

Turning recommendations on

Recommendations are off by default. Turn them on in Settings → Loans → Toy recommendations. The two member-facing shelves appear only while the setting is on; the staff Toy insights report works regardless.

For members (needs the setting on)

"Recommended for you" — a shelf at the top of the catalogue for signed-in members. It ranks the library's available toys the household hasn't borrowed yet, blending:
- the toy's platform-wide star rating,
- a bonus when the toy's age range fits one of the household's children, and
- a bonus when it's often borrowed alongside a toy the family already borrowed or rated highly.
"Families who borrowed this also borrowed …" — a strip on each toy page listing co-borrowed toys that are available in your library.

For staff (always available)

The Toy insights report (under Reports) has three review-driven lists — Hidden gems (loved but under-borrowed), At risk (poorly rated or "wouldn't borrow again"), and Top rated — plus an acquisition & retirement advisor:

Buy this — toys many other libraries hold and their members rate highly, that you don't have yet.
Buy another copy — your well-liked toys with lots of recent holds (demand you're missing).
Retire or refresh — your poorly-received, rarely-borrowed toys.

Privacy

Recommendations for a family are computed inside your library. The only cross-library inputs are platform-wide aggregates (average ratings, holdings counts, and anonymous "borrowed-together" counts) — never any other family's identity. There is no "your neighbours borrowed X" phrasing; it's platform-scale counts only.