Continuing with the same theme as with chapters 10 and 11, Morville & Rosenfeld’s “Design and Documentation” chapter in Information Architecture for the World Wide Web is the next set of instructions for putting IA into practice — and will clearly provide a solid checklist for the beginning of actual work product in the form of blueprints, wireframes, and content maps–and, though I know of no such guide that is available for anyone producing web content for the University of Florida Libraries, I can see the lasting impact having an IA style guide could have on building and maintaining a unified, usable site, (& wish I’d had one to reference when working on my little web corner). To that end, I’ve started looking at the changes that are being made to the site I used to maintain, and have begun listing all of the content. During a future campus visit, I hope to be able to engage in a bit of the research as outlined in chapter 10 of this book, so that by semester’s end I might be able to produce a plan for a better, more usable site.

Chapter 13, on education for information architects, was encouraging both as regards (1) pursuing this specific education in Library and Information Science, and (2) buoying any flagging self-confidence about my potential to be an information architect, (since it seems a rigorous IA-focused curriculum is hard to find, and a background in Library Science can be a useful starting point!). In practice, I know that Library and Information Science programs are turning out IAs, as is evidenced by a good friend of mine who recently graduated from UNC with his MIS and has been hired as an information architect by the Wall Street Journal. While I believe his coursework was more focused on IS and less on libraries, I remain hopeful that the courses offered at USF can be helpful to a similar end.