The increasing availability of digital materials on the Internet, along with automated services such as search engines, has made it possible for people to discover and access more information, by themselves, minute for minute, than ever before. In addition, the Web is enabling the creation of personalized -- yet networked -- collections of materials and services that in some ways resemble library special collections.

In this issue of D-Lib Magazine, you will find a two-part article on social bookmarking tools that enable just such personalized, networked collections.

Worth noting is the strong grass roots aspect to Connotea and the other social bookmarking tools. Individuals who are not information professionals are organizing and categorizing large amounts of external information both for their own use and for use by others. This is a potentially significant change. Until recently classification of information was a top-down, structured process. Now, much like the increasing customization of goods and services available to us (think of an entire life's music collection available as single songs on a device the size of a pocket pack of tissue), the power of computer networks has put a powerful organizational capability in the hands of ordinary information consumers. Will it work? Will this create a level of personalized information organization different but of equal or even greater importance to that created by the information professionals?