Information Architecture for Information Professionals

Citation

Flannery, W. (2008), "Information Architecture for Information Professionals", Library Management, Vol. 29 No. 8/9, pp. 808-809. https://doi.org/10.1108/01435120810917521

Dr Batley is a senior lecturer at the London Metropolitan University with teaching and research in the areas of organisation and retrieval of information and knowledge resources.

“Information Architecture” can be defined in many ways, depending on the context of its use. At its most basic interpretation, it is the organisation and structure of information. The term, and indeed its formulation as a profession, has come to include the navigation and findability of information in an online environment. It is a concept that has relevancy in traditional librarianship, but increasingly, within the context of information systems design. For librarians who are finding their roles evolving parallel to technical advancements, it provides an excellent illustration of how information architecture is a natural extension of our traditional competencies. For information technology specialists, it emphasises the importance of managing and delivering information for the end‐user, in terms of systems designs. This book explores information architecture in a way that is beneficial and pertinent to both audiences.

It begins, rightly, with a detailed look at the elements of information management, the cornerstone of developing good information architecture. For the librarian, many of the concepts explained here will be familiar, but Dr Batley's language and style present the concepts in a brief, easy‐to‐read, logical progression, which enables the reader to quickly grasp a broad overview of the individual considerations and their interrelationships, refreshing what we may already inherently know.

She explains the importance of conducting information audits to determine information needs, resource analysis, and task analysis, using brief scenarios to demonstrate her points, and outlines the various auditing methods and tools which can be employed, and the benefits and drawbacks of each method. The complexities that individual differences in user behaviour and organisational culture, and how that impacts on information systems design, is discussed at length.

The book then progresses to the processes associated with information searching, from the user perspective, and also from the systems functionality. Taxonomies, how they can increase retrieval efficiency and assist in decreasing user effort (often seamlessly), the limitations they present, building and maintaining them, are explained in adequate detail, although the author admits this subject is too large to be covered entirely.

With the basic question “how can this document be made retrievable” in mind, documents and document descriptions are addressed next, analysing format, type, source, subject, sequencing, co‐location, linking, metadata (including a synopsis on Dublin Core) etc. Thesauri and ontologies are also brought into play in this chapter.

Finally, we get to what most people would consider the nuts and bolts of information architecture – interface design. I liked the way this concept was not introduced until the latter part of the book, well after all the other critical considerations are discussed, leaving the reader fully understanding that information architecture is not just about the look and feel of a webpage. This section pulls all the concepts from previous chapters, and explains how all the information gathered in these stages is applied to produce information systems that support the needs of users, by providing attractive, intuitive interfaces that support a range of information tasks and accommodate a range of individual resources. Evaluating, managing and maintaining site are discussed in the final chapters, although comparatively briefly.

This book, at 212 pages, is not a vast tome, and the stages and complexities within each stage could bear much greater detailed explanation, and more practical examples, but the author acknowledges this, supplementing each chapter with “Further reading” recommendations, and an extensive reference list, for those who are inspired to learn more on the various topics.

The publisher states that this book “Is aimed at information professionals – existing texts in this emerging area are primarily aimed at web managers”. In my view, much of what is discussed in this book will be familiar territory to information management professionals, and that information technology professionals and web managers could benefit enormously from familiarising themselves with the concepts and methodology explained so simply by Dr Batley.