Impress Your Professor: Word!

I was reading through my RSS feeds a few weeks back (Google Reader, you are so addictive) and came across a Wordle of President Obama's Inauguration speech. The word cloud shows that the words he spoke the most were "new" and "nation."

If you've never seen or heard of Wordle, it is a program that creates word clouds based on the prominence of a each word's use. It's one of those new fangled ways of reading. While I will argue that it certainly will not replace reading, it does give and interesting spin on how we can absorb the overly meaning or theme of something. These word clouds are interesting because they break an idea, webpage, or speech down into a single, textual image.

For example, the Wordle below is comprised of the text I cut and pasted from the About SLIS webpage. We are dominated by information.



I suggest inputting your own information and seeing what comes out. Warning, this may be addictive.

Impress Your Professor: Information Architecture

So in the spring semester I did a report for 551 about Information Architecture. It sounds easy right? So I spent about 15 minutes fumbling in front of a class talking about the metaphor of Architecture and how it applies to Information. How we "build" and "structure" information to make it easily acceptable. Needless to say, this was not the most articulate or accurate report ever given in 551.

But Information Architecture is very important to the development of our profession. According to KM Column, "Information architecture is the term used to describe the structure of a system, i.e the way information is grouped, the navigation methods and terminology used within the system." Obviously, because this describes ways to structure information, there is on going research into improvements in IA. In the current issue of the ASIS&T Bulletin there is an article about the future of research into Information architecture.

In this article the author identifies several questions for the future of IA Research.

• What should information architecture research be doing?
• What should the research track be encouraging?
• What should we be asking for in our call for papers?
  

This might be one of the more interesting ideas, for me, as a student. It is our profession that will be directing the future of research. So start thinking!

Also in this issue there is another article about serving communities and how Information Architecture effects the creation of an information commons in the library environment.

These articles are a nice way to begin thinking about Information Architecture and its applications. So I encourage you to take a look!!

Save the date! — ASIST/PVC Announces First Event

Please join the Potomac Valley Chapter for our first event of the 2007-08 year!

"Working Together, Working Differently: How Millennials are Changing the Way Other Generations Learn, Interact, and Do Commerce."

Where: Whittall Pavilion, Jefferson Building, Library of Congress
When: 2-4pm, September 24, 2007, reception to follow 4-5.
Docent's Tour: Starting at 1:00pm (Space is limited)

Cosponsored by Fedlink and Library Associates

Check back here for future announcements for registration information.

Hope to see you there!
Jeffrey R. Prater
Chair, Potomac Valley Chapter of ASIST
Email: jeff.prater@yahoo.com