Hi all; here's a quick update on what's happening with the various projects at http://www.info-arch.org/infrastructure/. This is an all-volunteer effort that welcomes new blood and new ideas with open arms. So get involved and build the field of information architecture!

NEW DISCUSSION AREAS

* WAR STORIES: Cindy Alvarez has set up an area to discuss war stories and other practical experiences with IA.
http://www.info-arch.org/infrastructure/archives/000052.html

* TOOLS: David Heller has set up an area "...to post revised specifications for UI Designs, and allow the public to comment... to present prototypes of sections, and finally to distribute a version to IAs...".
http://www.info-arch.org/infrastructure/archives/000051.html

JOB BOARD/PROFESSIONALS DIRECTORY

* Jeff Lash and Brian Christensen have set up a job tips area on the IAwiki. Contribute your thoughts on how to get a job as an information architect, portfolio tips, what to expect from interviews, thoughts on a mentor program, information on recruiters, firms that are hiring.
http://iawiki.net/InfoArchDotOrg/JobTips

* Andrew Hinton, Eric Braun, and their colleagues at Symetri (http://www.symetri.com/) are hard at work on adapting a Symetri application that will initially work as a job board, but eventually see a professionals directory tied in.

* Of course, lots of great ideas associated with this project, and, or course, room for more volunteers.
http://www.info-arch.org/infrastructure/archives/000003.html

SIGIA-L ARCHIVE

You probably already know that SIGIA-L is being archived at:
http://www.info-arch.org/lists/sigia-l/

Since it launched, it's pretty much been all quiet on the archive front. There is continuing discussion regarding installing Swish as a search engine. This is an area where we could use a shot in the arm, and volunteers would be welcome. No shortage of ideas though; in fact, this is an area where the IA community could really distinguish itself with a state-of-the-art archive:
http://www.info-arch.org/infrastructure/archives/000011.html

IA LIBRARY

The IA Library team has been very active. A team at the University of North Carolina's School of Information and Library Science has taken on much of this work as class projects.
http://www.info-arch.org/infrastructure/archives/000006.html

* Scott Hanrath is taking the lead on defining the metadata for the IALibrary and is making great progress.

* Using data from the recent survey, as well as some informal interviews, Anthony (sorry, don't know his last name!) has compiled user analysis and task analysis documents, and is developing use cases too. He'll be diving into some interface design shortly, concentrating on the submission and approval interfaces.

* Todd Wilkens has been researching collection development policies for various Collaborative Digital Repositories, hoping to get a sense of the different approaches people have taken for different systems.

* Todd is also researching back-end systems for the IALibrary. There aren't any especially good link indexing systems that are open source; if you have any suggestions, contact Todd (tpodd@tpodd.com). Drupal (http://www.drupal.org) seems to be the best bet so far. If you have any experience and would like to help, here's Todd's checklist of system features that we're looking for:
- open-source, preferably using mysql and PHP/Perl
- link submission and moderation/approval
- categorization and some sort of hierarchical browsing
- user management: some sense of roles like admin, editor, user where editing privileges can be restricted to specific
categories
- some sort of user rating and filtering based on rating would be nice but not necessary

* John Paul Fullerton's survey of the IA community's library needs was completed by about 250 of you; thanks for your participation! The results area available:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/DisplaySummary.asp?SID=91818&U=9181841862