The bX Article Recommender Service


This post continues the theme of Library Ireland Week, 'Empowering Through Online Access'.

One of the services the Library provides to improve your online experience is the bX Article Recommender.
bX is a very effective way to help you discover other articles that you might find useful in your research.

How Does It work?
Think of it like using a shopping site such as Amazon - when you look for an item, you often find some information on the page saying 'People who viewed this item also viewed these similar items'. There you'll see a list of items similar to the one you're looking at.
bX works the same way; taking information from institutions across the globe, bX makes recommendations based on the article you're linking to.

So essentially bX is a list of articles that other users around the world viewed in addition to the one that you're linking to. It's a great way to discover more information on a topic that you mightn't have been aware of.


How Can I Use it?
It's very simple - just search for an article in our 'Including Articles' search in the catalogue and when you find an article of interest, you'll see the 'Recommendations' link with the article:


  • As always, sign into your Library Account first:


  • Enter what you're looking for and choose Including Articles:




  • Choose the article you want, and clink 'online access' to read it as normal. Now take a look at the tabs on screen for that article. If you see a 'Recommendations' tab, then that means bX has alternative articles for you to check out:




  • If you want to explore any of the articles in the list, then just press the SFX button to be brought through. Quite often the article you choose will have its own recommendations too, so it's a great way to explore good academic content for your topic:





Just a final note - bX works based on users from all around the world, so from time to time the recommendations will be for journals the Library doesn't currently subscribe to. If you don't see a 'Full Text' option in the menu, then that means the Library won't have access to it. bX is a powerful service though, and will often provide a huge amount of article recommendations for you to choose from.

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