Talk:Thomas D. Wilson

Proposed edit
I have been in communication with Stephen Philbrick about this page, which was written by a student in the USA, as a term paper. It is inappropriate for me to edit the page directly, and Stephen advised me to submit a potential revision for examination and whatever further editing was needed. I have tried to take the comments on the reservations regarding the present page into account in preparing the following text. I am happy for it to be revised in whatever way might be appropriate. I'm sure that my use of the markup language of Wikipedia is imperfect, and I'll be happy to remedy this :-)

‘”Thomas Daniel Wilson’” (born 18th January, 1935) British information scientist. Formerly Professor and Head of Department of Information Studies (now Sheffield iSchool), University of Sheffield, U.K., retiring in 2000. Currently Professor Emeritus of the University of Sheffield, Senior Professor, University of Borå, Sweden, and Visiting Professor, Leeds University Business School, UK. Professor Catedratico Convidado, Faculdade de Engenharia da Universidade do Porto, Portugal, 1998 to 2014. He is one of the most highly cited information scientists

‘”Biography”’

Wilson was born at Shincliffe Station, County Durham, England, where his father was a railway track-walker. Wilson went to Bowburn Primary School and then to the Johnston Grammar School (now Durham Johnston Comprehensive School) in the city of Durham. Leaving school at the age of 16, he became a library assistant in Durham County Library until, at the age of 18, he served two years National Service in the Royal Air Force.

Following National Service, Wilson served a further year in Durham County Library before studying for one year for the Library Association’s examinations to qualify as a professional librarian. After serving a further year with the County Library service he became Librarian of Stockton/Billingham Technical College and, in 1959, Librarian of the Nuclear Research Centre of C.A. Parsons & Co. in Newcastle upon Tyne. In 1960 he married Nyra Wilson (née Tully).

Having left school at 16 years of age, Wilson continued his education independently, completing the examinations for Fellowship of the Library Association and then studying for the Advanced Level General Certificate of Education and, subsequently, a degree in Economics and Sociology of the University of London. He was awarded the B.Sc. (Econ) (Honours) in 1970. In 1975 he received his Ph.D. from the University of Sheffield

‘”Career”’

Wilson began his academic career by taking up an appointment, in 1960, as Assistant Lecturer, Department of Librarianship, College of Commerce, Newcastle upon Tyne, with subsequent promotions to Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Principal Lecturer. (The College of Commerce became part of Newcastle upon Tyne Polytechnic, which is now Northumbria University.) In 1970-71 Wilson accepted an invitation as Visiting Lecturer in the School of Library and Information Services, University of Maryland, USA. Returning to the UK in 1971 he accepted an invitation to serve as Principal Investigator in the Postgraduate School of Librarianship and Information Science, University of Sheffield, on a two-year research project into library cooperation funded by the U.K. Department of Education and Science, taking up the position in January 1972. Towards the end of 1973 he was appointed Lecturer in the Postgraduate School and remained in Sheffield for the rest of his career, being appointed Professor of Information Management in 1983.

‘”Research”’

Following his work on library cooperation in 1972 and 1973, which led to the establishment the the Sheffield Libraries Coordinating Committee, Wilson turned his attention to the emerging fields of information management and what, at the time, was termed ‘user studies’, that is, the study of human interaction with information. In the course of his work on the INISS research project (Information Needs in Social Services Department) Wilson advocated the use of the term ‘information-seeking behaviour’, rather than ‘user studies’ or ‘information needs’, on the grounds that behaviour is observable whereas needs, being mental states, are not. In subsequent work he proposed that the term ‘information behaviour’ be used to cover all human interaction with information. These two terms have been generally adopted in subsequent research. Some fifteen years later Wilson reviewed the research on information behaviour in a variety of disciplines (information science, health informatics, consumer research, communication studies) and developed a theoretical model of the underlying concepts,.

In the field of information management, Wilson’s research covered such topics as the impact of information technology in organizations, business use of the World Wide Web , the relationship between information management and business performance and, latterly, through involvement in European Union projects, digital preservation

Following his retirement Wilson continues to engage in research through his appointments at the University of Leeds and the University of Borås. At the former, he worked with Professor David Allen and colleagues in developing an activity theory approach to information behaviour and information management . At the University of Borås he collaborated with colleagues on the development of successful proposals to the various research programmes of the European Union, the most significant of which were the EURIDICE Project, the SHAMAN Project and the PERICLES Project. In 2013, together with colleagues from Borås and the University of Gothenburg, he was awarded a grant of 11.8 million Swedish kroner by the Swedish Research Council, to investigate a programme of research into the production, distribution and use of e-books in Sweden

‘”Role in scholarly publishing”’

Throughout his career Wilson has played a number of roles in professional and scholarly publishing. On his move to Sheffield, together with a colleague, Normal Roberts, he established the scholarly journal, Social Science Information Studies, published by Butterworths, and acted as Editor. After some years, it was evident that the volume of relevant research was declining, while the field of information management was just emerging. Consequently, he merged Social Science Information Studies, with a new journal, the International Journal of Information Management (now published by Elsevier). He stood down from the editorship of this journal in 1987 when the pressures of his position as Head of Department demanded all his attention, but in 1995, recognizing the potential of the World Wide Web, he developed a Departmental newsletter into the scholarly, freely available, open access journal Information Research. Wilson transferred ownership of the journal to the University of Borås in October 2016, but he continues as Editor-in-Chief.

‘”Awards and honours’”

Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Information Scientists (now Chartered Institute of Information and Library Professionals), 1993; ALISE Award for Professional Contribution to Library and Information Education, 2000 ; Honorary Doctorate (Filosofie Hedersdoktor), University of Gothenburg, Sweden, 2005 ; Bobcat of the Year for Outstanding Contributions in Promoting European Library and Information Science, awarded by the European Association for Library and Information Education and Research, 2008 ; Outstanding Contributions to Information Behavior Award, Special Interest Group of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2009 ; Fellow of the SIG USE Academy of Fellows, 2009 ; Honorary Doctorate, University of Murcia, Spain, 2010.

‘”Publications”’

The following are his five most cited publications according to Google Scholar, which reports an h-index of 45 and an i10 index of 123. A complete list of publications can be found at Wilson’s home page. 

Wilson, T.D. (1999). Models in information behaviour research, Journal of documentation 55(3), 249-270 Wilson, T.D. (1981).On user studies and information needs, Journal of documentation 37(1), 3-15 Wilson, T.D. (2000). Human information behavior. Informing science 3(2), 49-56 Wilson, T.D. (2002). The nonsense of knowledge management. Information research 8(1), paper no. Wilson, T.D. (1997). Information behaviour: an interdisciplinary perspective. Information processing & management 33 (4), 551-572

‘”References”’

[1] Blessinger, K. and Frasier, M. (2007). Analysis of a decade in library literature: 1994-2004. College and Research Libraries, 68(2), 155-169.

[2] Wilson, T.D. (1975). Local library cooperation in the service of higher education. Journal of Librarianship, 7, 143-152

[3] Saunders, W.L. (1979). Research and the University of Sheffield Postgraduate School of Librarianship and Information Science. International Library Review, 11(2), 199-212

[4] Wilson, T.D. and Streatfield, D.R. (1980). “You can observe a lot...” A study of information use in local authority social services departments conducted by Project INISS. Sheffield: Postgraduate School of Librarianship and Information Science. (Occasional Publication No. 12).

[5] Wilson, T.D. (1981). On user studies and information needs, Journal of documentation 37(1), 3-15

[6] Wilson, T.D. (1999). Models in information behaviour research. Journal of Documentation, 55(3), 249-270.

[7] Wilson, T.D. (2016). A general theory of human information behaviour. Information Research, 21(4), paper no. isic1601. Retrieved from http://informationr.net/ir/21-4/isic/isic1601.html

[8] Wilson, T.D. (1984). Office automation and information services. London: British Library Research and Development Department (LIR Report no. 31)

[9] Cockburn, C. & Wilson, T.D. (1996). Business use of the World-Wide Web. International Journal of Information Management, 16, 83-102

[10] Owens, I., Abell, A. & Wilson, T.D. (1996). Information and business performance: a study of information systems and services in high performing companies. London: Bowker Saur

[11] Innocenti, P., Ross, S., Maceviciute, E., Wilson, T., Ludwig, J. and Pempe, W. (2009). Assessing digital preservation frameworks: the approach of the SHAMAN project. In MEDES '09 The International Conference on Management of Emergent Digital EcoSystems 2009, Lyon, France - October 27 - 30, 2009 (pp. 412-416). New York, NY: ACM.

[12] Allen, D.K., Wilson, T.D., Norman, A.W.T. and Knight, C. (2008). Information on the move: the use of mobile information sources by UK police forces. Information Research, 13(4), paper 378. Retrieved from http://informationr.net/ir/13-4/paper378.html.

[13] Eklund, P., Lindh, M., Maceviciute, E. and Wilson, T.D. (2006). EURIDICE Project: the evaluation of image database use in online learning. Education for Information, 24(4), 177-192.

[14] Borbinha, J. (2010). SHAMAN: Sustaining Heritage Access through Multivalent Archiving. Ercim News, (No. 80), 17-18. Retrieved from http://ercim-news.ercim.eu/images/stories/EN80/EN80-web.pdf

[15] Nilsson, S.K., Maceviciute, E., Wilson, T.D., Bergström, A. and Höglund, L. (2015). The tensions of e-book creation and distribution in a small-language culture. Northerns Lights: Film & Media Studies Yearbook, 13, 29-47.

[16] Olsson, C-O. (2007). Hedersdoktorer vid Göteborgs universitet under 100 år. 1907-2007. Gothenburg: Gothenburg University. Retrieved from http://medarbetarportalen.gu.se/digitalAssets/1410/1410942_HD_vid_GU_1907-2007__ny_version_.pdf

Professor T.D. Wilson
 * Hi there. While some of the sections of the proposed information are sourced, others are not, which is not acceptable, and violates the verifiability policy of the English Wikipedia. Another issue is the sentence "a complete list of publications can be found at" - such external links are not appropriate, and should be removed. As such, the current form of the request cannot be implemented, as the information is poorly sourced. Regards, VB00 (talk) 13:23, 2 January 2017 (UTC)

Merge proposal
There have been a couple of proposals over the last 5 years to merge Wilson's model of information behavior to Information behavior (for those proposals, see Talk:Information behavior), but perhaps this page might be better. Hence, I'm formally proposing this, suggesting that we start a new discussion here. Klbrain (talk) 21:17, 21 December 2023 (UTC)


 * I agree. I added Wilson's Awards to his page and edited the text a bit, but the additions you propose would greatly enhance the page.Kmccook (talk) 21:07, 7 January 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅ Klbrain (talk) 17:32, 20 July 2024 (UTC)