The architecture of knowledge

There is a subject within the field of information science known as “information architecture.” According to the Information Architecture Institute, information architecture is “the art and science of organizing and labeling websites, intranets, online communities and software to support usability.” To me this sounds like it has more to do with filing than architecture, but “information file clerk” just doesn’t have the same ring.

But long before people made up pompous-sounding terms like information architecture, there was a more rudimentary kind of architecture (known simply as “architecture”), and this was the kind that people interested in libraries cared about. And folks who build libraries—even today—don’t talk about information so much as they talk about a related—but very different—term: knowledge.