Patrick Wilson

Patrick Garland Wilson (December 29, 1927 – September 12, 2003) was a noted theorist of bibliographic control and philosopher of information who served at the University of California, Berkeley as professor and dean of the School of Librarianship (now the School of Information) there. Earlier in his career, Wilson taught philosophy at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Career

Wilson 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.

American Society for Information Science and Technology conferred on him its Award of Merit 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, http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Jan-02/wilson.html

Published works

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.

Further reading

• Patrick Wilson. Philosopher of Information: an Eclectic Imprint on Berkeley's School of Librarianship, 1965-1991. Ed by Laura McCreery. The Regents of the University of California. Library School Oral History Series, 2000. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/kt958006vr/
• White, Howard D. 2019. “Patrick Wilson”. Knowledge Organization 46, no. 4: 279-307. Also available in ISKO Encyclopedia of Knowledge Organization, eds. Birger Hjørland and Claudio Gnoli, https://www.isko.org/cyclo/wilson
• The librarian Wilson's obituary from UC Berkeley News
• UC Academic Senate's memorial for Patrick Wilson