Usage data at a high-traffic web site can expose information about external events and surges in popularity that may not be accessible solely from analyses of content and link structure.

We study a simple indicator of collective user interest in an item, the batting average, defined as the fraction of visits to an item’s description that result in an acquisition of that item.

We develop a stochastic model for identifying points in time at which an item's batting average experiences significant change.

In experiments with usage data from the Internet Archive, we find that such changes often occur in an abrupt, discrete fashion, and that these changes can be closely aligned with events such as the highlighting of an item on the site or the appearance of a link from an active external referrer.

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?

If you are taken in by all the fanfare and hoopla that have attended Google's latest project, you would think Sergey and and Larry are well on their way to godliness.

I do not share that opinion.

The nub of the matter lies in the distinction between information and recorded knowledge.