While reading the first five chapters of IA, I found myself flipping back and forth between through two emotions: annoyance and enjoyment. The information presented (no pun intended) was great. I do understand a little better what the nature of information architecture purports itself to be. However, the authors failed to hook me on what they themselves commented on in the second chapter. The big, bold letters say it all: "Do We Need Information Architects?" (p. 17)Well, in my humble opinion, (and bear it in mind that I am not even close to the genius of these librarian-information-engineer-usability-design-architects), no, we don't. As they very clearly point out, the idea of information architecture is indeed crucial. However, why do we need someone as an overall warlord of metadata? As long as your team of (see above)professionals works together well, it would seem to me that a solid and reliable architecture for a company's website would still emerge successful. I know there's more to it, but if I had my own company and was hiring out for a website to be designed, I'd rather have a"jack-of-all-trades" designer working on it, rather than paying inane amounts of money for someone to theorize about my design. I don't want a website philosophizer (yes, that was intentional).Speaking of being silly and recognizing my own humor, did anyone else like the pat on their own back on page 25? "Incidentally, we think it's important for information architects to have a good sense of humor."

Honestly, I just think they try too hard in the first couple of chapters to defend the field and the need for the jobs to exist. I had no pre-conceptions going into the reading, yet immediately felt within a few pages that, as if I had attacked first, I had to deal with their whining about how needed and important their existence really is. To paraphrase an extremely overused, yet still effective Shakespearean quote: The Information Architect doth protest too much, methinks.