PixVue
This little program is so worth the download (free!) - once you've installed it you can see you IPTC data and meta data and any annotations you've made simply by scrolling the mouse over the image thumbnail - you don't have to open the image at all.
Also gives you all this info if you view the properties - and you can edit the info without opening the images also.
I haven't used all the functions yet, but it creates pdf files and a web gallery, and provides html as well.
I'm probably going to dump Adobe Album (which I used for slideshows) and a couple of other minor programs.
Once I've tried the full functionality I might not even need Irfanview
http://www.pixvue.com/