Rating: 
Summary: First Half is a Must, Second is a Bust
Review: I found the first nine chapters of this book to be EXTREMELY useful - well worth the price of the book alone. However, the second half of the book was much more abstract and much less useful to me ... to be honest, these chapters bored the heck out of me.I know this book is considered the "bible" for most information architects as well as many Web designers, so it's intimidating to say anything negative about it. Maybe I just didn't "get" the second half of the book and need to read those chapters again. Like I said, though, the first nine chapters offer a ton of useful, practical insights - a must-read for any Web professional.
Rating: 
Summary: Unfortunately the second edition is worse than the first
Review: I think the authors have fellen for too much of their own hype. The first edition (which essentially forms the first half of the second edition) comes over as a book written by two shy and studious librarians, trying to apply their scholarly approach to the strange new world of the web. They are careful and tentative in their suggestions, and reserved in their presentation. The book is a bit at odds with most web design tomes, but interesting and thought-provoking, none the less. The second edition reads like a desparate attempt to "puff up" a bunch of practices and approaches that they have been using over the last few years, but have forgotten why they chose to do them in the first place. It's assertive, strident and often superficial. I'm not surprised their consultancy operation went out of business. The two shy librarians, seduced by the bright lights of the dot-com boom, have been left in the gutter with nothing but an expensive suit and a hangover. The classic Greek Tragedy. Pride comes before the fall. I got dispirited, and had to take a break. My solution was to re-read my copy of Krug's "Don't Make Me Think!", still my top recommendation of all the web design books I've read; concise, practical, enjoyable. That cheered me up :)
Rating:
Summary: Important Guidelines for Content Managers
Review: I used this book to get started in the design of a coporate accounting portal in a fortune-500 company. Prior to reading, I was too focused on what my page would look like and found that afterwards, my site was much better geared to the customer-base it was intended to serve. This is an important read for web-page designers that still think of site development in terms of the number of web-pages.
Rating:
Summary: Important Guidelines for Content Managers
Review: I used this book to get started in the design of a coporate accounting portal in a fortune-500 company. Prior to reading, I was too focused on what my page would look like and found that afterwards, my site was much better geared to the customer-base it was intended to serve. This is an important read for web-page designers that still think of site development in terms of the number of web-pages.
Rating: 
Summary: The book that explains Information Architecture
Review: If I were to teach a class in Information Architecture on a remote pacific island, and I could only bring one book - this would be THE BOOK.
This is the book which brings students of IA further than any other single book. It is the book that covers the most ground. It is the book You would have killed for when You started as an IA. But it is not really a "how-to" book. It is much more of an "understand the business" book. The second edition is different from the first edition. It has improved in so many ways. We're talking solid 460 pages packed with practical advice, knowledge supported by experience, and great examples. The Library and Information Science bias that made the first edition a little single sided is not present in this second edition which encompasses the entire field and deals with most aspects of Information Architecture - from presenting search results to making elevator pitches in the world of business strategy. Information Architecture for the World Wide Web is not one of those books that are backed by a lot of scientific evidence. The advice given in this book is backed by the authority and experience of two of the most widely recognized people in the field. If that counts for You, then this book is for You. The cover says "designing large scale web sites". This is true. It is not a book about building community sites, and it is not about small e-business sites. This is a book about the big picture on the big projects, but it actually has a lot of relevant input for the building of smaller sites as well.
Rating:
Summary: Every web developer should READ THIS BOOK!
Review: Information architecture sounds impressive, but it's a new title for a subject I've been pushing with software developers since before there WAS a world wide web, or at least since before most people knew it existed. It's a matter of usability, and appearance. A website must be both good-looking, and easy-to-use. And this book tells you exactly what that does (and doesn't) mean.
If you design or write websites, please, for the sake of all your visitors, READ THIS BOOK!
Rating:
Summary: The IA Source
Review: One of the benefits of the recent slow down in web activities is people with something to share, have the time to share it. Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville have used the time to complete the second edition of what will become known as The Bible of Information Architecture. Using concise and clear language, they provide a thorough review of the emerging art and science of information architecture. This edition has updated chapters on organization, labeling, navigation and searching. There is a new chapter on thesauri, controlled vocabularies and metadata. In a world where web designers, developers and managers struggle to provide users, who are busier, more demanding and less forgiving, vast amounts of up-to-the-moment information; this book is a must. As readers of this book, we can only hope the recovery from the recent slow down is vigorous enough to allow us to put into practice the nuggets contained in this insightful and thought provoking book.
Rating:
Summary: Good all in one source for those not familiar with it.
Review: The title of this book is a bit misleading, I thought it should be the caption at the top of the front cover, "Designing Large Scale Web Sites." While the authors do a good job at covering a large amount of material, I was disappointed that most of the material was a cross between design information and usability. A lot of the information is available in other places, but if you haven't done much reading on various design or usability aspects, this book does a good job of bringing together basic information from a number of different disciplines into one place.
The organization of the material was well thought out, topics were divided into logical sections, and built upon previous chapters when appropriate.
If you haven't done any work on a large scale project before, or aren't familiar with usability, or have some areas that you need to know more about, this is an excellent book to look at. Otherwise, you may find a large portion of this book covering familiar territory, and that much of what is talked about is already company policy or common sense.
Rating:
Summary: Great Management Book
Review: There are more advanced books for explaining information architecture to someone looking to actually design information systems for the web, but there are few better books for explaining to a manager the value of IA for an organization. The first half of the book seeks to explain the difference good and bad design can have on a user's experience in finding information. Although the examples are at times more cerebral (compared to Jakob Nielsen's Designing Web Usability, who picks websites and suggests how navigation and organization could be changed for a better user experience) the book's value comes from effectively communicating the design vocabulary necessary for an information designer to communicate his or her vision to management.
Rating:
Summary: That's one sharp Polar Bear!
Review: 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.
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