What Role Did Argus Play in Creating Information Architecture?

In 1998, Argus principals Peter Morville and Lou Rosenfeld published "Information Architecture for the World Wide Web" (O'Reilly). The book received much praise, and was named "Best Internet Book of 1998" by Amazon.com. Usability expert Jakob Nielsen said it was "without a doubt the most useful book on Web design on the market." (with the publication of his own book, "Designing Web Usability," Nielsen began calling it the "second-most useful book" after his own).

Perhaps the best indication of its influence was how newly minted IA's referred to the book as, quite simply, "the book." It became a catalyst for web designers the world over, and has been translated into Japanese, Korean, and Spanish. It not only gave people a term which described their approach to designing web sites, the book validated and legitimized their work.

Argus' role in defining IA went beyond the book. It included:

• The "Web Architect" columns at Web Review published from 1997 through 1999. When everyone else was talking about HTML and Perl and databases, the Web Architect columns talked about organization schemes, topic hierarchies, controlled vocabularies, thesaurus development, search systems, and labels for hyperlinks.
• ACIA, the Argus Center for Information Architecture, was established to provide "leadership in defining and advancing the evolving discipline of information architecture." ACIA has publishe white papers, columns, interviews with IA's, book reviews, a guide to information architecture resources, and has served as a focal point for the IA community. ACIA is expected to continue serving the IA community despite the Argus closure.
• The Information Architecture 2000 conference, the "leading conference for information architects by information architects" Held in La Jolla, CA, in October of 2000, the conference was a huge success. Argus, through ACIA, organized this gathering of IA professionals.
• Developing two IA conferences in conjunction with ASIS. There were two summits: Defining Information Architecture (April 7-9, 2000, Boston, MA) and Practicing Information Architecture (February 2-4, 2001, San Francisco, CA). Both conferences were very well attended, and attest to the importance and growth of the IA community.
• Tirelessly describing and promoting information architecture at conferences such as Intranets '99/2000/2001, Intranets East, Internet Librarian, Online World, Web Design World, American Association of Law Libraries conference, Edgewise 99, Online World, C|Net Builder.com, Web Design & Development '98, Internet World '98, KM World, COMDEX, and well, you get the idea.
• Making Information Architect an accepted job title. Prior to the publication of the book it was rare to find someone with those two words on their business card. Today it's common, and job boards like Monster.com and Dice.com carrying postings for dozens, often a hundred or more, information architect positions.