Five Years of Information Architecture in the Free Pint newsletter

Just before Christmas the Free Pint newsletter published an article by Karen Loasby, Information Architecture Team Lead at the BBC's new-fangled sounding Future Media and Technology department. Karen is one of the people who I most miss working with on a day-to-day basis.

The article surveys the last five years of development in the field of Information Architecture, from a situation where people were only just getting to grips with some of the key concepts involved, to today, where user-led ideas like folksonomies are threatening the traditional top-down approach often taken by librarians.

Typically her piece manages to be both a high-level overview of the broad themes of the last five years in the Information Architecture field, whilst also giving real down-to-earth detailed practical advice about how to find out more about IA online. And that is an illustration of exactly the kind of things that a good IA needs to do - simultaneously have an eye for the big picture and the tiny detail.

If you've never followed/subscribed to Free Pint it is a great source of information and ideas. One of my old team at the BBC used to meticulously print out the best articles and place them on desks around work to make sure people read them, and it is great to hear Karen Loasby's voice joining that long list of useful articles.

2001 to 2006: Five Years of Information Architecture by Karen Loasby