Peter Ingwersen

Peter Emil Rerup Ingwersen (born 1947) is a Danish information scientist and librarian. He is known as the father of webometrics, and is also known for his Cognitive Theory of Information Retrieval and the Principle of Polyrepresentation.[1] He is a professor emeritus at the Royal School of Library and Information Science at the University of Copenhagen. He is a recipient of the ASIST Award of Merit (2016).

Photo Available (the white background) @ https://peteringwersen.info/

Life

Son of a geologist,[2] Peter Ingwersen studied mathematics/physics at St. Jørgens Gymnasium and then served as a Staff Sergeant in the Gardehusar Regiment (Danish Royal Navy) during 1966-68. He graduated from the Royal School of Library and Information Science with a library degree in 1973, and that year joined the school's faculty as a lecturer. He received a Ph.D. from Copenhagen Business School in 1991, dissertation titled "Intermediary Functions in Information Retrieval Interaction".

He married Irene Wormell.[3]

Contributions

From 1982-1984 Ingwersen worked for the European Space Agency in Frascati, Italy, as a research associate in the Information Retrieval Service. In 1984, Ingwersen returned to the Royal School as an associate professor in the Information Resources Management department. He served as Head of the Department of Information Retrieval Theory (1993-1999) and then became Denmark's first Research Professor in librarianship and information Science in January 2001.[4] He was promoted to full professor in information retrieval in January 2006. He retired from the Royal School in 2010.[5] He remains (since 1997) an affiliate professor at Åbo Akademi University, Finland, and (since 2017) an adjunct professor at Aalborg University, Denmark.

Writing with his student Tomas Almind in Journal of Documentation (1997), Ingwersen coined the term "webometrics" and launched the field. He further defined webometrics in a 2001 article with Lennart Björneborn.[6] He provided expert consultation on the development of the information system of the Danish Parliament.[7]

Publications

• Larsen, B., Ingwersen, P., & Lund, B. (2009). Data fusion according to the principle of polyrepresentation. JASIST 60 (4): 646–654. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.21028
• Larsen, B., Ingwersen, P., & Kekäläinen, J. (2006). The polyrepresentation continuum in IR. In Proceedings of the 1st international conference on Information interaction in context (IIiX) (pp. 88–96). New York: Association for Computing Machinery. https://doi.org/10.1145/1164820.1164840
• Ingwersen, P. & Järvelin, K. (2005). The Turn - Integration of Information Seeking and Retrieval in Context. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3851-8
• Ingwersen, P. (2004). Highlights of a career in information science. Bulletin of ASIST 30 (6): 19-20. https://doi.org/10.1002/bult.1720300606
• Ingwersen P. (1998). The calculation of web impact factors. Journal of Documentation 54 (2): 236–243, https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000007167
• Almind T.C., Ingwersen P. (1997). Informetric analyses on the world wide web: Methodological approaches to ‘webometrics’. Journal of Documentation 53 (4): 404–426, https://doi.org/10.1108/EUM0000000007205
• Ingwersen, P. (1996). Cognitive perspectives of information retrieval interaction: Elements of a cognitive IR theory. Journal of Documentation 52 (1): 3–50, https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026960
• Ingwersen, P. (1992). Information Retrieval Interaction. London: Taylor Graham Publishing. https://peteringwersen.info/ Cited over 150 times per Web of Science.
• Ingwersen, P. & Wormell, I. (1992). Ranganathan in the perspective of advanced information retrieval. Libri 42 (3): 184-201. https://doi.org/10.1515/libr.1992.42.3.184
• Ingwersen, P. (1982). Search procedures in the library - analyzed from the cognitive point of view. Journal of Documentation 38 (3): 165–191, https://doi.org/10.1108/eb026727

Awards

• ASIST Award of Merit, 2016
• Tony Kent Strix Award, 2015
• Honorary Doctorate, University Carlos III Madrid, 2015
• Honorary Doctorate, Åbo Akademi University, 2014
• Honorary Doctorate, University of Tampere, 2010
• Larsen, B. (Ed.). (2010). The Janus Faced Scholar: A Festschrift in Honour of Peter Ingwersen. ISSI Society.[8]
• Contributions in Information Science & Technology Award (CISTA), Los Angeles Chapter of the American Society for Information Science (LACASIS&T), 2009
• ASIST Outstanding Information Science Teacher Award, 2007
• Derek de Solla Price Medal, 2005
• Thomson Award of Excellence (Denmark), 2005
• ASIST Research Award, 2003
• Distinguished Lectureship Award, New Jersey ASIS Chapter, 1994
• Jason Farradane Award, Institute of Information Scientists (UK), 1993
• Fellow of the UK Library Association, 1990

Further Reading

• Rousseau, Ronald. (2005). Peter Ingwersen: Recipient of the 2005 Derek de Solla Price Award. Scientometrics 65 (3): 267–269. doi:10.1007/s11192-005-0272-5.
• Larsen, P.S. "Peter Ingwersen". Lex. 2014-11-03.[9]
• ASIST Staff. (2016). Winners of Prestigious ASIS&T Awards to be Honored in Copenhagen. Bulletin of ASIST 43 (1): 7-18. https://doi.org/10.1002/bul2.2016.1720430103
• "Peter Emil Rerup Ingwersen - Aalborg University's Research Portal". 2022.[10]
• "Peter Ingwersen - ORCiD". 2022.[11]
• "Peter Ingwersen (information scientist)". Wikipedia. 2026.[12]