Peter Ingwersen

Peter Emil Rerup Ingwersen, D. Ph., h.c. Ingwersen was among the two first research professors of librarianship and information science appointed in Denmark.He is known as the father of webometrics, and is also known for his Cognitive Theory of Information Retrieval. Between 1990 and 2005, he was the most-cited Danish researcher in the Social Sciences. In 2016, Ingwersen was awarded the ASIS&T Award of Merit, in recognition of his contributions to the field of information science, particularly webometrics and information retrieval.

Career In 1973, Peter Ingwersen graduated from the Royal School of Library and Information Science (Royal School of LIS) in Copenhagen with a degree in Library and Information Studies. The article coined the term and kickstarted the field of webometrics, which seeks to quantify and study internet-based phenomena. Ingwersen further defined webometrics in "Toward a basic framework for webometrics," which he co-wrote with Lennart Björneborn in 2004: "The study of the quantitative aspects of the construction and use of information resources, structures and technologies on the Web drawing on bibliometric and informetric approaches."

According to researcher Mike Thelwall, although other definitions have been proposed, Ingwersen and Björneborn's original definition is still the primary one used in the field.

As of 2010, webometrics was the largest sub-field within library and information science.

Major publications

"Search procedures in the library -- analyzed from the cognitive point of view," Journal of Documentation, 1982 Information Retrieval Interaction (1992) "Cognitive perspectives of information retrieval interaction: elements of a cognitive IR theory," Journal of Documentation, 1996 "Informetric analyses on the World Wide Web: methodological approaches to webometrics" (with Tomas Almind), Journal of Documentation, 1997 "Perspectives of webometrics" (with Lennart Björneborn), Scientometrics, 2001 "Toward a basic framework for webometrics" (with Lennart Björneborn), Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2004 The Turn: Integration of Information Seeking and Retrieval in Context (with Kalervo Järvelin, 2005)

Awards

Jason Farradane Award (1993) American Society for Information Science/New Jersey Chapter Distinguished Lectureship Award (1994) ASIS&T Research Award (USA, 2003) Thomson Award of Excellence (Denmark, 2005) Derek de Solla Price Award (2005) Honorary doctorate, Tampere University (2010) Honorary doctorate, Åbo Akademi (2014) UKeiG Tony Kent Strix Award (2015) ASIS&T Award of Merit (2016)