The second edition of this important title on locating information, people and software on the net provides a host of tools for accessing and locating online communities, from building web tools for using the Internet for research to locating virtual libraries of information. An excellent handbook reflects the latest in Internet strategies.

This is a great book to introduce business people to information architecture, for architects to reinforce their skills, and for web designers to principles to apply to site design. The second edition has more information and is more in depth than the first, and is well worth purchasing.

The first three chapters of the book explore what information architecture is and what it is needed. Chapters 4 - 9, the "Basic Principles of Information Architecture" have the most substance. Several chapters bear reading several times, including:

Chapter 5: Organization Systems, Chapter 7: Navigation Systems, Chapter 8: Search Systems and Chapter 9: Thesauri, Controlled Vocabularies, and Metadata

The sections on Process and Methodologyactice, and Organizational fit are all good for people learning about IA, but may be too basic for anyone that does a lot of work or reading in the field. The Education Chapter is already out of date, which is to be expected.

IA for the World Wide Web is a great book, worth reading and worth hanging onto for reference or to use to explain the IA to others.

This book is perfect for those involved in research, strategy, design and implementation of corporate portals, intranets, CM/DM, and metadata projects. An exciting time in this field; Rosenfeld and Morville have performed a service for practitioners by packaging their knowledge, experience and perspective into this well-written book. The authors help one to realize how recently the role of information architect has become a professional role. For IA's, this book will help you effectively articulate your perspective throughout the organization; it's worth the price for that advantage alone.

This book is now in it's second edition, and the update is well worth the $20 investment. The authors give the best all around introduction to the subject that I have seen. What I like about their approach is that they don't claim to have all the answers and they seem to understand that this is a field that is in evolotion. What's great about the book is that it's in plain English and is aimed at programmers and graphic designers who don't have a degree in library science. What I enjoyed most about the book is that there is quite a bit of good common sense. Not only would I recommend this book to someone starting in the field, but I would also say that if you are an old timer it's a worthwhile read to get a better taste of what best industry practices are these days. While the book has some illustrated examples, it manages not to be a pretty picture book which tells you what you already know.

In an e-world crowded by a cobweb of sites, one could surely do with some information architecture. This book is the first step toward understanding the importance of IA in the success of a site.

The most endearing part about the book is the fact that the authors have not overlooked the practical difficulties. It's easy to preach theory, it's darned difficult to put it in practice. Thanks to their many years of experience, the authors hand out quite a few useful tips to iron out those real-world wrinkles. In Chapter 3 (Organizing Information), for instance, the authors deal with tackling internal politics of the organization so that the site doesn't reflect "the strong undercurrent of politics."

The authors have kept a very wide spectrum of readers in mind. In their words, "...we wrote this book to be accessible to anyone who has used the World Wide Web more than once or twice." That's the reason why anybody who has anything to do with the Web will find this book helpful. And that's also the reason why those who dream in pixels and drop-down boxes may not get satiated. But then, a good starter is as important as the main course. I'm sure Rosenfeld and Morville are putting together a delectable fare for the main course. I'm waiting. And drooling...

I had been looking around for a book like this for some time now: one that guides me through the crucial conceptual design phase of web site development. Most books on web site design are really about user interface design. This book offers a top-down planning approach to getting from the recognition of a need for a web site through to the final working design. It plugs up a lot of the gaping holes that topic-specific design texts leave open.

The over-riding concern and emphasis in the first section of the book is on how to organize the information on the web site in such a way that the target audience can readily get at it. To this end, the authors focus on three 'systems' that need to be developed, implemented and coordinated on a web site: a navigation system, a labeling system and a searching system. Once these systems are thought through and designed then the rest of the work becomes a matter of filling in the information content, functionalities and the bells and whistles.

Clear, concise and even a bit humorous, this book will definitely give you a peace of mind if you find yourself a bit overwhelmed at times when deciding on just how you will approach building a web site.

There's a reason all the famous web-design folks recommend this book. It's still about the only book that addresses the design of _information_, and it still does the job very well.

O'Reilly has become justifiably famous with its user-friendly technical volumes, but this one is a bit of a departure. There isn't anything in here about how to code anything; there are no handy lists of functions or commands for easy reference. What there is is a thorough, focused but wide-ranging discussion of the issues facing someone who wants to make electronic information usable and accessible via a website.

(That includes database design, by the way. There isn't all that much detail and it's in the context of making websites searchable, but there's good discussion of e.g. controlled-vocabulary terms and how users actually look for information.)

The overall approach is refreshingly big-picture: the authors emphasize, for example, navigation _systems_ and labelling _systems_ (rather than just "labels"), and they devote an entire chapter to "conceptual design." No wonder, three and a half years after its initial publication, it's still the standard reference work in a field that usually puts books out of date overnight.

And no wonder Jakob Nielsen thinks well enough of it to write the foreword. If you know who Nielsen is, you probably already have this book; but since none of the information on this page credits his contribution, it can't hurt to let readers know.

Ostensibly devoted to websites but generally applicable to any context in which electronic information has to be organized, this book should be somewhere on the shelf of every IT professional. If you like Steve Krug's _Don't Make Me Think!_ (as I do), you'll like this one too -- maybe better. (Krug's book is a good one to show your boss; this is a good one to read whether your boss sees it or not.)