Actually, one could say that it is the other way around - or at least it was initially. In his article, Soft Skills for Information Architecture, posted on the Digital Web Magazine site, Jeff Lash explains that, "...the current practice of information architecture was largely influenced by library science." He goes on to encourage information architects to embrace their inner librarian, "by developing a system for storing and retrieving useful information." So, we can look to the cataloging work done by librarians to give us insight on how an information architect might approach her task of linking information on a website.
LIS and IA are themselves closely linked. In fact, it is two LIS graduates, Peter Morville and Louis Rosenfeld, who wrote the book, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web: Designing Large-scale Web Sites. While their book is praised by the Library Journal in an excerpt on the Amazon website, for their ability to "show how to design manageable sites right the first time, sites built for growth." The Library Journal gives the authors accolades because, "They discuss ideas of organization, navigation, labeling, searching, research, and conceptual design. This is almost common sense, which is often overlooked in the rush for cascading style sheets and XML." While this may seem like common sense to a librarian for whom clarity and ease are of the utmost importance, the information architect may find a few issues with the way Morville and Rosenfeld present their information. For an information architect, there is more to the job than just creating a user friendly navigation scheme. On the website for Eastgate, creators of hypertext technologies, and publishers of hypertext related non-fiction and fiction, is a review of Morville and Rosenfields text. Though the reviewer (unnamed) did find LIS practices significant, "All designers of large Web sites need to be familiar with the indexing and cataloging skills that Rosenfeld and Morville explain. Lessons from library science are worth learning...". He or she also found flaws in some of the author's thinking:
"Though the authors' background as librarians is their strength, it also weakens the book. Cataloging and searching are what Rosenfeld and Morville do best; once the reader gets to the "right" place, the authors lose interest. Navigation is regarded to search engines and indexes. The book's skepticism toward "cool" Web design has drawn many accolades, but misses a key point: Web sites are strongest when everything -- graphic design, organization, writing, and hypertext structure -- serves the same end."
The author certainly makes a valid point - information architecture is about usability, and there are many factors that go into this. A visually enticing site is certainly one that is more welcoming to its user. Thus, an information architect should be taking into consideration how the information she is organizing is going to be perceived by the user: as something fun and attractive, or boring and banal. This is where the work of a website designer becomes crucial to that of an information architect.
