From Content Consumers to Content Creators

In his D-Lib Magazine article (November/December 2008), Social Annotations in Digital Library Collections, Rich Gazan describes a case study in which social annotations were integrated with digital items in a question and answer site because digital libraries must recast users not just as content consumers, but as content creators in order to incorporate Web 2.0 functionality effectively. The results of a study of a Web 2.0 question and answer site that has made the transition from factual to social content are analyzed, and eight decision points for digital libraries to consider when integrating social annotations with digital collection items are proposed. [JH]