Rating: 
Summary: Still Relevant
Review: Although written in 1990, this book is still relevant because it deals with the basic principles on how to handle the information overload. We need this now more than ever with 24/7 TV news, 24/7 internet alerts, email, text messaging TiVo, etc. etc. the basic principles are easy to apply with lots of shortcuts and it doesn't really matter the form the information bombardment takes.
Rating: 
Summary: One for the reference shelf
Review: Found it difficult to put this down. Parts of the book are a bit slow and somewhat off topic, but most is spot on and Wurman offers some wonderful insight and obsevations that left me wondering why I had never thought of viewing things in a similar context.For anyone designing web media/printed communications the advice and insight Wurman offers is well worth the price of admission. This is one I'll have the shelf with Tufte.
Rating:
Summary: One for the reference shelf
Review: Found it difficult to put this down. Parts of the book are a bit slow and somewhat off topic, but most is spot on and Wurman offers some wonderful insight and obsevations that left me wondering why I had never thought of viewing things in a similar context. For anyone designing web media/printed communications the advice and insight Wurman offers is well worth the price of admission. This is one I'll have the shelf with Tufte.
Rating: 
Summary: Should have followed his own advice
Review: I admit it, I like the idea of Information Architecture. I think we all owe Wurman a debt for popularizing the idea. But gosh, how come he didn't follow his own advice in organizing this mess of a book? Was there an editor involved? I think the review entitled "Swill" was being polite.
Rating:
Summary: A Quick-and-Dirty Mishmash of Platitudes
Review: I am taking the unusual step of rating this book "1 star" to express my extremely high level of dissatisfaction at its quality and usefullness. There is no question that Richard Saul Wurman is a highly gifted individual, and his ACCESS books are fabulous. But this poorly-edited, disorganized book fails to capture or convey any of the insights that went into that or other successful Wurman projects. My guess is that this project was conceived as a quickie update to the original Information Anxiety to take advantage of Internet mania, and as such much of the work was delegated to others, but without sufficient review and editing. (There are too many editing mistakes to list here, but suffice it to say that probably few books have a misspelling in the Table Of Contents as this one does -- "Informatgion" instead of "Information".) RSW tells us that it's important to always start off with what the question is. Problem is, he doesn't follow his own advice in that book. He careens uncontrollably from gushy predictions about the future, to cataclysmic warnings of information deluge, to superficial suggestions on software and web design, to facile pop management advice, The only thread connecting all these disjointed pieces is that he strictly limits himself to talking about how important something or other is, without ever giving specific advice about how to approach it. I am personally interested in the field of localization and globalization. So naturally I was curious as to what insight RSW brought to this area. What I found was a single, lonely page on the topic, with a few lines of simplistic patter, and a strange, unexplained diagram of various fountain pens with country names associated with each. I am also interested in the combination of text and graphics to present information and in fact bought this book thinking it might have some insights in that regards. So I was quite happy to see in the Table of Contents a section Design in the Digital Age, summarized as "In this Digital Age we need to focus on the connections among all design elements: medium, words, pictures, and sound." Alas, true to form, all the section in question does is repeat that we need to focus on this, with no clue as how we might actually do that, nor a single example in sight. To get an idea of the poor editing quality of this book, consider the following paragraph from this section: "Where words meet pictures meet sound creates understanding. Are you a value-based organization? A service-based organization? A quality-based organization? Are you all three? We test communication by conveying a message and having the recipient understand it, be interested in it, and remember it. Any other measure is unimportant and invalid." Does anyone else wonder how the stuff about organizations fits in here? It's just random cut-and-paste content that accidentally found its way here, never to receive the benefit of the editor's pen. Signs of rampant cut-and-pasting abound throughout the book. Although not really the fault of the author(s), the book is also seriously dated, having come out while there was still some degree of dot-com mania going on (although the peak was passed). So you can read this book on sort of an archaeological level, to recall all the bizarre things people were saying back in those heady days. Internet refrigerators, anyone? I probably don't need to summarize; let me simply say you are best off spending your time and money on virtually any book on this topic besides this one.
Rating:
Summary: A Quick-and-Dirty Mishmash of Platitudes
Review: I am taking the unusual step of rating this book "1 star" to express my extremely high level of dissatisfaction at its quality and usefullness. There is no question that Richard Saul Wurman is a highly gifted individual, and his ACCESS books are fabulous. But this poorly-edited, disorganized book fails to capture or convey any of the insights that went into that or other successful Wurman projects. My guess is that this project was conceived as a quickie update to the original Information Anxiety to take advantage of Internet mania, and as such much of the work was delegated to others, but without sufficient review and editing. (There are too many editing mistakes to list here, but suffice it to say that probably few books have a misspelling in the Table Of Contents as this one does -- "Informatgion" instead of "Information".) RSW tells us that it's important to always start off with what the question is. Problem is, he doesn't follow his own advice in that book. He careens uncontrollably from gushy predictions about the future, to cataclysmic warnings of information deluge, to superficial suggestions on software and web design, to facile pop management advice, The only thread connecting all these disjointed pieces is that he strictly limits himself to talking about how important something or other is, without ever giving specific advice about how to approach it. I am personally interested in the field of localization and globalization. So naturally I was curious as to what insight RSW brought to this area. What I found was a single, lonely page on the topic, with a few lines of simplistic patter, and a strange, unexplained diagram of various fountain pens with country names associated with each. I am also interested in the combination of text and graphics to present information and in fact bought this book thinking it might have some insights in that regards. So I was quite happy to see in the Table of Contents a section Design in the Digital Age, summarized as "In this Digital Age we need to focus on the connections among all design elements: medium, words, pictures, and sound." Alas, true to form, all the section in question does is repeat that we need to focus on this, with no clue as how we might actually do that, nor a single example in sight. To get an idea of the poor editing quality of this book, consider the following paragraph from this section: "Where words meet pictures meet sound creates understanding. Are you a value-based organization? A service-based organization? A quality-based organization? Are you all three? We test communication by conveying a message and having the recipient understand it, be interested in it, and remember it. Any other measure is unimportant and invalid." Does anyone else wonder how the stuff about organizations fits in here? It's just random cut-and-paste content that accidentally found its way here, never to receive the benefit of the editor's pen. Signs of rampant cut-and-pasting abound throughout the book. Although not really the fault of the author(s), the book is also seriously dated, having come out while there was still some degree of dot-com mania going on (although the peak was passed). So you can read this book on sort of an archaeological level, to recall all the bizarre things people were saying back in those heady days. Internet refrigerators, anyone? I probably don't need to summarize; let me simply say you are best off spending your time and money on virtually any book on this topic besides this one.
Rating:
Summary: A Quick-and-Dirty Mishmash of Platitudes
Review: I am taking the unusual step of rating this book "1 star" to express my extremely high level of dissatisfaction at its quality and usefullness. There is no question that Richard Saul Wurman is a highly gifted individual, and his ACCESS books are fabulous. But this poorly-edited, disorganized book fails to capture or convey any of the insights that went into that or other successful Wurman projects. My guess is that this project was conceived as a quickie update to the original Information Anxiety to take advantage of Internet mania, and as such much of the work was delegated to others, but without sufficient review and editing. (There are too many editing mistakes to list here, but suffice it to say that probably few books have a misspelling in the Table Of Contents as this one does -- "Informatgion" instead of "Information".) RSW tells us that it's important to always start off with what the question is. Problem is, he doesn't follow his own advice in that book. He careens uncontrollably from gushy predictions about the future, to cataclysmic warnings of information deluge, to superficial suggestions on software and web design, to facile pop management advice, The only thread connecting all these disjointed pieces is that he strictly limits himself to talking about how important something or other is, without ever giving specific advice about how to approach it. I am personally interested in the field of localization and globalization. So naturally I was curious as to what insight RSW brought to this area. What I found was a single, lonely page on the topic, with a few lines of simplistic patter, and a strange, unexplained diagram of various fountain pens with country names associated with each. I am also interested in the combination of text and graphics to present information and in fact bought this book thinking it might have some insights in that regards. So I was quite happy to see in the Table of Contents a section Design in the Digital Age, summarized as "In this Digital Age we need to focus on the connections among all design elements: medium, words, pictures, and sound." Alas, true to form, all the section in question does is repeat that we need to focus on this, with no clue as how we might actually do that, nor a single example in sight. To get an idea of the poor editing quality of this book, consider the following paragraph from this section: "Where words meet pictures meet sound creates understanding. Are you a value-based organization? A service-based organization? A quality-based organization? Are you all three? We test communication by conveying a message and having the recipient understand it, be interested in it, and remember it. Any other measure is unimportant and invalid." Does anyone else wonder how the stuff about organizations fits in here? It's just random cut-and-paste content that accidentally found its way here, never to receive the benefit of the editor's pen. Signs of rampant cut-and-pasting abound throughout the book. Although not really the fault of the author(s), the book is also seriously dated, having come out while there was still some degree of dot-com mania going on (although the peak was passed). So you can read this book on sort of an archaeological level, to recall all the bizarre things people were saying back in those heady days. Internet refrigerators, anyone? I probably don't need to summarize; let me simply say you are best off spending your time and money on virtually any book on this topic besides this one.
Rating:
Summary: There's Nothing New Under This Sun...
Review: I read Wurman's first Info. Anxiety years ago and hungrily gobbled up the great reviews of this sequel. The book, however, is a crashing disappointment. While Wurman evinces the appreciation for the obvious that makes all high-priced consultants worth their fees, he hasn't stretched himself with this work. Wurman offers nothing new either to expand upon or address his theories of Information Anxiety. Strangely, I have found this book to be all but unreadable except in very short bursts. The marginalia are rarely illuminating, occasionally thought-provoking, and frequently distracting. Even the book's size, weight, and the design of it's massive-flapped cover make it difficult to handle -- issues which one would think Wurman would have addressed. This guy's past his prime.
Rating:
Summary: There's Nothing New Under This Sun...
Review: I read Wurman's first Info. Anxiety years ago and hungrily gobbled up the great reviews of this sequel. The book, however, is a crashing disappointment. While Wurman evinces the appreciation for the obvious that makes all high-priced consultants worth their fees, he hasn't stretched himself with this work. Wurman offers nothing new either to expand upon or address his theories of Information Anxiety. Strangely, I have found this book to be all but unreadable except in very short bursts. The marginalia are rarely illuminating, occasionally thought-provoking, and frequently distracting. Even the book's size, weight, and the design of it's massive-flapped cover make it difficult to handle -- issues which one would think Wurman would have addressed. This guy's past his prime.
Rating:
Summary: Not as much a book as a stimulating conversation ...
Review: I was about to give book two stars. As several reviewers have pointed out, IA2 wanders off into superficial discussions of self-help and managerial principles, and is full of self-promotion from cover to cover (literally). You expect a conference registration card each time you turn a page. But just as RSW must have been trembling in his black turtleneck with the prospect of receiving such a low rating on Amazon, I realized that it is precisely his ego that made the experience great. The undiluted point of view stemming from genuine interests, with ample random and not-so-random diversions, raises enough questions and opens enough doors to be more than worth the baggage. The book is like one of those flights where you skip ordering cocktails until you pass out, because you have been seated next to someone interesting -- it requires a bit more effort, but is ultimately more rewarding too. So four it is.
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