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amazon.co.uk
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amazon.com |
Details: |
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ISBN 0750658584
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Published by Butterworth Heinemann
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Written by Roger Evernden and Elaine Evernden
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Book published September 2003
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Title:
Information First: Integrating Knowledge and Information Architecture for Business Advantage
Review:
Last month, one of the main themes of the EBIC 2004 conference in
Lisbon was Information Architecture. It's interesting that Information
Architecture (IA) has become a staple topic on the conference circuit,
but the question I was asking myself when I volunteered to review
'Information First' was: is Information Architecture any different
from the same issues and theories surrounding 'Strategic Information
Management', 'Knowledge Management' or even 'Knowledge Architecture'?
Or is it simply this year's fashion?
Certainly, IA isn't something new; it's a mixture of technology,
substance, style, access and location. 'Information First' is a
'big picture' book; it combines techniques from KM and IA and is
primarily aimed at Information and Knowledge professionals. The
author, Roger Evernden, is an acknowledged expert in techniques for
the effective use of corporate information, specializing in IA and KM.
To complement the book there's a website http://www.4thresource.com
that outlines some of the ideas, as well as pointing users to other
resources and theorists.
The first half of the book explores what IA is all about. The author
draws heavily on the use of analogies and metaphors: IA is like
cooking a meal, using the right ingredients; or it's like
construction, using the right materials for the job; etc. The
over-dependence on analogies seems to be because IA is a slippery
concept for people to grasp. Once you understand what IA is, you can
then decide what changes are required and why changes are required,
using why-why diagrams; when changes are required, using timescales
and deadlines; and how to change, using action plans.
The core of the book, Evernden's eight essential factors for information
management: categories, understanding, presentation, evolution,
knowledge, responsibility, process and meta-levels, all underpin each
chapter in the book. These can then be used to discover the
relationships and values in ownership, responsibility and evolution of
information. They are all umbrella disciplines, drawn from a number of
other theories and approaches, and the author makes no apology for
this.
The second half tackles the more practical aspects of IA. It's here
where I think the value of the book lies: where information
professionals can dip in and out for ideas and techniques that they
can adopt and use in their own libraries or information departments.
Creating information maps and audits, action plans, checklists and
examples of information categories and of architecture scopes.
Overall, because this book best describes strategic tools for
Information Architecture, the 'big picture' method, it lacks in-depth
tactical detail. It's a good introduction to the discipline, but I
can't help feeling that more on taxonomies and KM would have been
useful. Explicit knowledge only is dealt with here, and if information
is the most important part of the IA layer then the taxonomy applied
is essential, but there's no mention of taxonomies in the book. I
think a more detailed exploration into what makes a good taxonomy,
what tools are available and what meta data standards are out there
would have been useful when discussing IA.
FreePint Reviewer:
Stephen D'Arcy (BA Hons. Inf. Dip) is a research analyst for Magus
Research http://www.magus.co.uk, a company that specialises in
Information architecture and visual design, Information integration,
bespoke content management and business-to-business online information
systems and services for multinational corporations. Before working
for Magus he worked for Vrisko Ltd, an enterprise search software
company and before that for the Financial Times.
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