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Using your mlis skills in information architecture
1. Using Your MLIS Skills in
Information Architecture
Theresa Putkey
2. My Background
• Technical writer to requirements analyst
• Employee to independent
• Technical writer to information architect
• To MLIS degree
3. What Is IA?
• Helping people organize information
• Understanding who is going to use it and
designing for them
• Design can be for a content management
system (CMS), digital asset management
system (DAM), digital library, Intranet,
website
4. Why IA?
• Corporations have tonnes of information
but have no idea how to organize it
• Or they organize it but no one can search
for it or find it
5. The IA Approach
• Is a user-centred design approach
• We learn about what users need (just as a
librarian learns about services patrons
need)
• Use research skills such as surveys and
interviewing
• Apply our understanding of information
seeking behaviour.
6. IA Analysis and Design
• Do a content inventory
• Card sorting to find out how people
organize content
• Create metadata and taxonomies, a site
map to show site structure
• Advise on and review the search interface
• Design wireframes
• Conduct user testing
7. What Skills Do IAs Use?
• 240 – basic structure of a website, some HTML
and CSS
• 244 – search tools (I did a paper on federated
search)
• 247 – a lot about non-traditional classification
• 281 – all about metadata
• 282 – digital asset management
• 285 – research skills
• 287 – digital libraries (which can be corporate,
too!)
• 294 – taxonomy internship
• WISE – information interaction
8. Challenge MLIS Students Face
• Many MLIS students lack practical, on the
job experience in corporations
• Aren’t sure how to speak the language
and adapt the skills
• Solve this by doing a non-library internship
• Find a company you want to work for and
ask them to have you as an intern.
9. Resources
With these resources, you’ll find a LOT more
information
• ASIST www.asis.org
• IA Institute www.iainstitute.org
• My 240 project
foo.keypointe.ca/libr240/final_project/page
s/iatopics.php
• My website www.keypointe.ca