Rating: 
Summary: The worst O'Reilly Book I've ever read
Review: I usually love O'Reilly - I've never bought a book of theirs that I didn't find occasion to go back to for some reason at some point before this book. Most O'Reilly books have info that you can reference when your actually working on a project - this book doesn't even prepare you for discussing the task intellegently. Granted, if this were not an O'Reilly book I would have given it 2 stars, but I have higher expectations from O'Reilly.An example of what I found incredibly frustrating about the book follows. I expected the section called "Designing Elegant Navigation Systems" (the last section in the chapter "Designing Navigation Systems") to contain advice about what to include in the navigation system and suggestions for designing navigation systems. I got one page of babeling that included sentances like "Based on the hierarchy, you will be able to select key pages (or types of pages) that shoudl be accessible from every other page on the web site." At no point to they suggest what sorts of pages should be accessible. They don't mention the ones that should be obvious: feedback, home, and search; nor do they discuss if or when it's desirable to have one link from each major subsection in the global navigation. The whole book was disapointing to me, I don't really feel that I learned much of anything on the subject. I knew nothing of the field to start with, so I feel I should have come away from any well written book on the subject with some comprehension of the field.
Rating: 
Summary: Great foundational piece!
Review: Rosenfeld and Morville's book makes, perhaps, its greatest contribution by presenting its potentially intimidating subject in a way that makes it accessible to virtually any reader. This is no small task and speaks as much about the authors' gift for writing as it does about their technical knowledge. In my office, this book has become foundational reading and I recommend it highly to colleagues or anyone interested in the presentation of information through the web.
Rating:
Summary: Heavy-duty Web design
Review: This book presents a thorough introduction to the concept of information architecture for Websites. Written by librarians who specialize in information retrieval, this book explains why some sites are easy to navigate and others are impossible. It explains the steps necessary to plan the architecture of a Website, especially a large Website that will be created by a team of people rather than an individual. The authors suggest techniques for making clear to clients the importance of information architecture before work on the site actually begins. The book covers navigation systems and labeling systems (choosing useful names for links). It also contains a very thought-provoking chapter on search systems and factors that a Web manager should consider before choosing or building a search engine for a site. I would recommend this book to anyone in charge of planning or maintaining Websites, especially large Websites.
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