[[Nate Davis]] identified two schools of thought around information architecture. One school of thought is the "classical school," characterized by the creation of information organization structures for online content. In many ways, this is the equivalent of library science for the web – largely pragmatic and focused on managing specific bodies of content. The second school of thought is the "contemporary school," characterized by a more strategic approach and broader scope. Contemporary IA works in the realm of cross-channel experiences, cross-functional systems, and high-level strategy. Though this "classical / contemporary" framing implies an old way and a new way of doing IA, in fact modern IAs engage skills from both schools. "Contemporary school" skills are used for evaluating and analyzing an information system at a high level with an eye to how that system may develop in the future. "Classical school" skills are used to feed that analysis, and to execute on IA strategy. Nate framed this well in creating his [[Information Architecture Common Set]]. The two IA schools of thought are sometimes called "Little IA" and "Big IA." I prefer the terms [[tactical IA]] and [[strategic ia]]. --- **Relates to**: [[information architecture|IA]]