1. An item selecting apparatus comprising: a usage characteristics information calculator configured to: calculate an elapsed value as a difference between a time point of item time information representing a time point of creating an item or a time point of starting providing of the item and a given time point; and calculate usage characteristics information of a use subject with respect to item usage conditions based on a distribution of elapsed values calculated for the use subject; and an item selector configured to: select a correspondence rule in accordance with the usage characteristics information from a plurality of correspondence rules with different characteristics; calculate a novelty index for each item using the correspondence rule and the item time information; calculate a popularity index as a numerical value associated with the number of usages for each item or the number of use subjects for each item; calculate a priority that takes a higher value as the novelty index takes a higher value and the popularity index takes a higher value; and select a recommendation item for the use subject based on the priority; wherein the usage characteristics information calculator and the item selector are hardware or a combination of hardware and software.