on the website of the Information Architecture Institute, http://iainstitute.org/

First, in the About section (“About,” n.d., para. 1-3), the IA Institute represents itself as an organization for IA professionals in a similar way to how ALA exists for librarians or ASIS&T for information professionals. I saw the stated goal of building bridges between related disciplines, (something that many professional organizations that cross strict lines of professional definition could benefit from, like ALA!), and was immediately impressed by one practical goal of the Institute, to make information architecture resources available in many languages, (“About,” n.d., para. 3; “Initiatives,” n.d., para. 2). While this may seem a relatively insignificant task, I have to say that the field of information architecture is exciting exactly of this sort of effort – it’s clear, through the work of people affiliated with the IA Institute, that not only is something like ‘access’ a goal in a lofty way, but people are taking deliberate, practical steps to making this happen. Maybe that’s representative of the entire field, in fact, since IA seems to be driven by a way to make connections better, and facilitate delivery of whatever form of information product is wanted by a user.

Though I’ve just begun to review the resources in the Introduction to Information Architecture group within the IA Library, (“Library,” n.d.), it seems perusing these documents will be a good way to get an overview of the development of the field of IA over the last ten to fifteen years, as well as to get a better sense of the breadth of what IA might mean and/or where it intersects with other areas.

References

About. (n.d.). In Information Architecture Institute. Retrieved from http://iainstitute.org/en/about/

Initiatives. (n.d.). In Information Architecture Institute. Retrieved from http://iainstitute.org/en/about/global_initiatives.php

Library. (n.d.). In Information Architecture Institute. Retrieved from http://iainstitute.org/library/