Alan Gilchrist

Barry Mahon

This timely book, introduced by Peter Morville, widely recognized as a founding father of information architecture, starts from the perception that information systems and sources need to be designed within a framework--an architecture." It then describes and analyzes the various components of this building process: the design environment; hardware, networks, and software; knowledge representation (including taxonomies, classifications, and thesauri); interoperability (including standards and markup languages); user interfaces; usability and findability; and prospects for the future. The roles of general management, computing personnel, and information professionals as joint owners of the information architecture are analyzed. Carefully selected synopses of how these techniques actually work underscore the importance of information architecture in the real world. This state-of-the-art guide will appeal to librarians, knowledge managers, and information studies students.

Designing Information Environments for Purpose

Information Architecture

The advent of the computer has facilitated an exponential growth in the tools and techniques for manipulating information. Much of the development has been ad-hoc, driven by general management practises of gaining productivity and efficiency through the greater use of computers. Little attention has been paid to the broader issues of coherence and co-ordination of the information increasingly used to drive modern organizations. This book addresses these broader issues. It starts from the perception that information systems and sources need to be designed within a framework, an architecture, which requires a detailed understanding of the roles of the information and the tools to manipulate it, within the organization. The different elements of the architecture are described and analysed and the necessity to undertake detailed and continuous research into developments in computer hardware, software and in information management is emphasised. In addition, the roles of the various parties, general management, computing personnel and information professionals as joint owners of the information architecture are analysed. Chapters include: overview of information architecture; hardware, networks and software; the need to plan IT environments; working with IT personnel; the software environment; knowledge representation: taxonomies; classification; thesauri; interoperability: the semantic web; role of Markup; ontologies; the user interface; designing for users. Readership: The primary audience is senior and middle managers in the information profession: this will include all professionals in the corporate information sector, including knowledge managers. The book will also be of great interest to all students of information and knowledge management and also on business and IT-related courses.

Barry Mahon

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