Mediating expert knowledge and visitor interest in art work recommendation

In this paper, we will present an outline for an online recommender system for art works. The system, termed Virtual Museum Guide, will take the interest that visitors of an online museum express into account in recommending suitable art works, as well as the relationships that exist between art works in the collection. To keep the Virtual Museum Guide similar to a human museum guide, we based its design on principles from research on human memory. This way, the Virtual Museum Guide can 'remember' which is the most suitable art work to present, based on its perception of the visitor's interests and its knowledge of the works of art.