Patrick Wilson

Photo of Patrick G. Wilson — Patrick G. Wilson

Patrick Garland Wilson (1927–2003) was an American theorist of bibliographic control.

Life

Patrick Garland Wilson was born on December 29, 1927 and grew up in Santa Cruz, California. He studied philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley: AB with highest honors, in 1949 and PhD,with a dissertation on On interpretation and understanding in 1960. He also completed a Bachelor of Library Science degree in 1953 and worked in the University Library 1950-1959, latterly as a bibliographer in South Asia studies. From 1960 Wilson taught philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles, then returned to Berkeley in 1965 as professor and, later, dean of the School of Librarianship (later School of Information). He retired in 1991 and died on September 12, 2003.

Contributions

Wilson was a noted theorist of bibliographic control and philosopher of information.

He is noted within the library and information science communities for his work on the philosophical underpinnings of bibliographic control, that is, the ways in which recorded knowledge is organized and the relationships between different documents and pieces of knowledge. He also did work on what he called "cognitive authority," which is the study of how people gain reputation and the authority of possessing knowledge in the eyes of other people. The American Society for Information Science and Technology conferred its highest honor, its Award of Merit, on him in 2001. In his acceptance remarks, Wilson commented:

"So for me information science and technology has been a fascinating combination of engineering, an odd kind of materials science and social epistemology. Social epistemology with a focus on textual objects and with an eye on the actual and possible roles of information systems is a productive approach to our field. There is a huge and rich supply of real problems out there still awaiting exploration, of real importance and endless fascination, and I urge others to take them on." (On Accepting the ASIST Award of Merit. Bulletin of the Association for Information Science January 2002, https://asistdl.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/bult.228

Published works

For a list of his publications see Patrick Wilson Bibliography.

Wilson was the author of three books:

Wilson, Patrick (1968). Two Kinds of Power: An Essay on Bibliographical Control. University of California Press. p. 155. ISBN 978-0-520-03515-7.
Wilson, Patrick (1977). Public Knowledge, Private Ignorance: Toward a Library and Information Policy. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 156. ISBN 978-0-8371-9485-1.
Wilson, Patrick (1983). Second-Hand Knowledge: An Inquiry into Cognitive Authority. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 210. ISBN 978-0-313-23763-8.

Life

Contributions

Published works

Further reading