Thomas D. Wilson

Dr. Thomas D. Wilson has been an active contributor to the world of information science since 1961, when he received his Fellowship from the British Library Association. The bulk of his research has focused in information seeking behavior over the years.

Biography [ [http://informationr.net/tdw/biog.html Dr. Thomas D. Wilson - Biography] ]

Thomas Daniel Wilson was born in 1935 in a railway cottage north of Durham, England. He left school at age 16 to work as a library assistant in Durham. He was called up for National Service and served in the Royal Air Force. After his service in the RAF, he returned to Durham County Library and took the tests of the Library Association to become a fully-fledged librarian. He then moved to being head of a small academic library - head by default, because he was the only librarian. 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, but was unable to find a way to use the company computers to help with information. After this, he received his Fellowship from the Library Association, and began his academic career in 1961. He since received a BSc degree in economics and sociology, and a doctorate in organization theory [ [http://informationr.net/tdw/cv.html Dr. Thomas D. Wilson - Curriculum Vitae] ] . He is now retired, but still holds several teaching positions, including Professor Emeritus at the University of Sheffield. Dr. Wilson received an honorary doctorate from Gothenburg University in 2005.

Research History

Dr. Wilson has focused largely in analyzing how individuals and groups gather and communicate information.

INISS Project

Dr. Wilson’s most well-known study on information seeking behavior was the INISS project [ [http://informationr.net/tdw/publ/INISS/ INISS Project Papers] ] , conducted from 1980 to 1985. The aim of the project was to increase the efficiency of Social Services workers. 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.

Uncertainty in Information Seeking

More recently, Dr. Wilson looked at information seeking behavior for the British Library Research and Innovation Centre. The resulting paper, "Uncertainty in Information Seeking," [ [http://informationr.net/tdw/publ/unis “Uncertainty in Information Seeking”] ] 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.

InformationR.net

In addition to this work, Dr. Wilson also founded "Information Research" [ [http://InformationR.net/ir "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.

Current Activities

Dr. Wilson’s research into information seeking behavior 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.

References

External links

* [http://www.shef.ac.uk/is/staff/wilson.html Wilson's Webpage @ the "University of Sheffield]