 | It has been suggested that Wilson's model of information behavior be merged into this article. (Discuss) Proposed since December 2023. |
Dr. Thomas D. Wilson is a researcher in information science and has been contributing to the field since 1961, when he received his Fellowship from the British Library Association. His research has focused on information management and information seeking behaviour.
Thomas Daniel Wilson was born in 1935 at Shincliffe Station in County Durham, England. He left school at age 16 to work as a library assistant in Durham County Library. Following national service in the Royal Air Force he returned to Durham County Library and took the examinations of the Library Association to qualify as a professional librarian. He then moved to being head of a small academic library. He then worked as a corporate librarian for the Nuclear Research Centre of C. A. Parsons, at which time he became interested in the use of new technology in information science.
After completing his Fellowship of the Library Association he began his academic career in 1961. He subsequently obtained a BSc degree in economics and sociology, and a doctorate in organization theory. [1]
He is now Professor Emeritus at the Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield, Visiting Professor at Leeds University Business School, Visiting Professor at the University of Boras, Sweden, and Professor Catedratico Convidado in the Faculty of Engineering, University of Oporto.
In the area of information behaviour (a term he invented to cover all activities associated with seeking, acquiring, using and sharing information) Dr. Wilson has focused largely in analyzing how individuals and groups gather and communicate information.
Dr. Wilson's best-known study on information seeking behaviour was the INISS project, [2] conducted from 1980 to 1985. The aim of the project was to increase the efficiency of Social Services workers in the management of information. In addition to the traditional methods of surveys and interviews with those seeking the information, Dr. Wilson and his team also observed social workers and their managers in their day-to-day tasks, to see what techniques were actually used to find, use and communicate information. He observed that, in the environment of a Social Services office, the majority of information (60%) was oral, with a further 10% being notes taken on oral communication. That, combined with lack of training in using the other information sources available, had led to a lack of organized information being used at Social Services offices. He recommended the establishment of a central library for Social Services information, along with training staff to access that information, as well as more communication within each office on information needs.
More recently, Dr. Wilson looked at information seeking behaviour for the British Library Research and Innovation Centre. The resulting paper, "Uncertainty in Information Seeking," [3] identified that information seeking is based on a series of uncertainty resolutions which lead to a problem solution. There are four steps in the process, problem identification, problem definition, problem resolution, and solution statement. At each step of the process, more information must be gathered in order to resolve the uncertainty of that step. Also, the research established that by providing information seekers with a pattern to follow (such as the four step uncertainty resolution pattern), the accuracy and volume of information they acquired was increased.
Recently, Dr. Wilson has been an advocate for the adoption of activity theory in the area of information behaviour [4] and in information systems research. [5]
Throughout his research career, Dr. Wilson has also been active in the field of information management and was the founder and first editor of the International Journal of Information Management. His research in this area included early studies on business use of the World Wide Web, [6] [7] [8] the relationship of information systems and business performance [9] and the application of mobile information systems in policing. [5]
In addition to this work, Dr. Wilson also founded Information Research, an online journal for information science. This is a freely available, Open Access journal, which constitutes an excellent resource for IS students. The journal is part of the wider InformationR.net site, which also hosts the World list of schools and departments of information science, information management and related disciplines, which he has maintained since 1996.
Dr. Wilson's research into information seeking behaviour has been used by instructors in teaching research methods. Though now retired, he continues to engage in research projects through his participation in the AIMTech Research Group at the University of Leeds Business School and through projects at the Swedish School of Library and Information Science. He is a member of the group at the Swedish School which is participating in the SHAMAN project on long-term digital preservation, [10] funded by the European Union. In 2012, together with colleagues at the University of Borås and Gothenburg University, he was awarded a grant of 11.8 million Swedish kronor ($1.7 million) by Vetenskapsrådet (Swedish Research Council) for a programme of research into the production, distribution and use of e-books in Sweden.
Kenneth Joseph Arrow was an American economist, mathematician, writer, and political theorist. Along with John Hicks, he won the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences in 1972.
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American University of Nigeria The American University of Nigeria (AUN) is a private university in Yola the capital of Adamawa, Nigeria. It offers an American-style liberal arts higher education at undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels. Founded in 2003,[1] AUN, Africa’s first “Development University,” is accredited by the National Universities Commission (NUC).[2] Its current faculty numbers 93, its undergraduate and graduate enrollment is 1500 students. It is known as the first American-style university in Sub-Saharan Africa. AUN is accredited by the National Universities Commission (NUC).
The International School of Information Management (ISiM) is the first Indian i-School and is an autonomous constituent institute of the University of Mysore, located in Mysore in Karnataka, Southern India. ISiM was conceptualised and established in 2005, in collaboration with the leading information schools in the U.S – namely the School of Information at the University of Michigan, the School of Information Sciences at the University of Pittsburgh, and the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University, International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT) Bangalore, and Dalhousie University of Canada. ISiM was established with grants from the Ford Foundation and Bangalore based Informatics India Pvt. Ltd.
Robert Butler "Bob" Wilson, Jr. is an American economist and the Adams Distinguished Professor of Management, Emeritus at Stanford University. He was jointly awarded the 2020 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, together with his Stanford colleague and former student Paul R. Milgrom, "for improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats". Two more of his students, Alvin E. Roth and Bengt Holmström, are also Nobel Laureates in their own right.
Yang Tingzhong is a scholar in social and behavior sciences, a population behaviorist, and sociologist in health.
Information behavior is a field of information science research that seeks to understand the way people search for and use information in various contexts. It can include information seeking and information retrieval, but it also aims to understand why people seek information and how they use it. The term 'information behavior' was coined by Thomas D. Wilson in 1982 and sparked controversy upon its introduction. The term has now been adopted and Wilson's model of information behavior is widely cited in information behavior literature. In 2000, Wilson defined information behavior as "the totality of human behavior in relation to sources and channels of information".
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The UNC School of Information and Library Science(SILS) is a professional school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill offering a bachelor's degree in information science, master's degrees in library science and information science, a professional science master's degree in digital curation, and a doctoral degree in information and library science as well as an undergraduate minor, graduate certificate programs, and a post-masters certificate.
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Information Research: An International Electronic Journal is a quarterly peer-reviewed open-access academic journal covering the fields of information science, information management, and information systems. It was established in 1995 as an electronic journal by Thomas D. Wilson. It was privately published by Professor Wilson until 2017, when ownership of the journal was transferred to the Swedish School of Library and Information Science, University of Borås. Professor Wilson continues to act as editor-in-chief. The journal is supported by the University of Lund, which provides server space and technical assistance, and by the University of Borås, which provides administrative support for the deputy editor. The journal is produced entirely through voluntary work; there are no subscription or author charges. A 2012 reader survey revealed that 40% of readers are academic faculty members, 38% "information practitioners", and 22% students and post-graduate researchers.
Chaminda Chiran Jayasundara obtained his bachelor's degree in Statistics from the University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka in 2000, MSc in Information Management from the University of Sheffield, UK in 2002 and Doctor of Literature and Philosophy in Information Science from the University of South Africa in 2010. He has worked at the University of Colombo Library as the Deputy University Librarian, Fiji National University as the University Librarian, Sir John Kotelawala Defence University as the University Librarian and currently the University Librarian of the University of Kelaniya.
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Ronald E. Day is a librarian and a professor of Information and Library Science at Indiana University in Bloomington where he specializes in research on the culture and history of "information, documentation, knowledge, and communication" in the 20th and 21st centuries. Ronald Day is a significant scholar in the field of library and information science having contributed the first major work on the 20th century French librarian and information scientist Suzanne Briet, known as "Madame Documentation," and publishing more than forty works on the intersection of critical theory and library science. Day is one of the few modern critical theorists in the field of library and information science that foregrounds much of his work in the discipline of rhetoric.
Hazel Jane Read Hall is a British Information scientist and academic. She is Emeritus Professor in the School of Computing, Engineering, and Built Environment at Edinburgh Napier University, Scotland and Docent in Information Studies in the School of Business and Economics at Åbo Akademi University, Finland.
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