The Director of the Westport Public Library, Maxine Bleiweis, often speaks of how libraries have changed and how they must continue to change if libraries are going to continue to serve their patrons. One point she has made is how people now no longer simply consume information; with various web 2.0 tools at their disposal, they also create information. Anyone who blogs understands this. After all, we are blogging so others can read our thoughts.
But this point was truly brought home to me over the Christmas break from school. I created a Goodreads account about a year ago. For those of you unfamiliar with Goodreads, it is a Web 2.0 cite for books, just as Ravelry is a web 2.0 tool for yarn. I had been using LibraryThing to catalog the books I read, but when I got over a certain number (one or two hundred), it was going to cost me money! So I abandoned LibraryThing and moved to Goodreads.
I like these cites. They help me to recommend books for friends, keep track of books I plan on reading (no more little slips of paper!) and avoid those horrible times when I get 200 pages into a book to realize I read it a few years ago. Goodreads gives you the option of adding your own review. Sometimes I do that - particularly if I want to remember what I liked or disliked about a book. I never never thought of that as "creating content", it was a memory aid only. Yet over the winter break I got 3 emails from Goodreads about 3 different books I had reviewed, notifying me that other Goodreads members had marked that review as one that they liked.
So yes, Maxine, we are creators of content. Whether we know it or not!
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