I am a Professor of Information Science, formerly at the Department of Library and Information Science at City, University of London. Presently Honorary Professor and PhD supervisor at University College London and the University of Ljubljana.
My interests in information science and documentation include theories and philosophies of information, information behaviour and digital literacy – in particular information for creativity and for the development of understanding – and aspects of knowledge organisation and of information history. See my academic and professional page for more details.
I am editor of Journal of Documentation, the leading European journal of library/information science, editorial board member for Knjižnica, and for MDPI’s open access journal Information and open post-publication peer-review journal Sci, co-author of Facet’s best-selling textbook Introduction to Information Science (second edition, 2022) and of the open access monograph Open Access in Theory and Practice (Routledge, 2020), and a member of the international advisory board for the Conceptions of Library and Information Science (CoLIS) conferences.
My blog is used mainly for short and informal comments on topics within my academic interests, with a few pieces on London; the blog category list will give an indication of what to expect. Posting is occasional, rather than regular or frequent, as befits the title.
Some recent and upcoming publications
D Bawden. Journal Editor’s Perspective. In LS Connaway, ML Radford, and V Kitzie (eds.) Research Methods in Library and Information Science (8th edn.). London: Bloomsbury. Forthcoming, 2027.
D. Bawden and L. Robinson. Some understudied aspects and concepts of information behaviour. In Fourie.I. (ed.), Research Handbook on Information Behaviour. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. Forthcoming, 2027.
S. Fras Popović, P. Vilar, D. Bawden, and L. Robinson. Are librarians and LIS students reading role models? – Could their reading capacities contribute to addressing childrens’ information poverty? Vjesnik bibliotekara Hrvatske [Bulletin of Croation Librarians], 2027, forthcoming
D Bawden and L Robinson. Library and Information Science. International Encyclopedia of Communication Theory and Philosophy, 2nd edition. Forthcoming 2027.
D Bawden and L Robinson. A voice out of the dark of time; the once and future LIS discipline. [Knowledge Commons, November 2025]
Dark matter and information revisited [blog post, August 2025]
Entropy. How little we (still) know [blog post, March 2025]
D. Bawden and L. Robinson. Achieving global open access. Book review. Knjižnica: revija za področje bibliotekarstva in informacijske znanosti, 2025, 69(1), 77-82.
Japanese translation of Introduction to Information Science (2nd edn.) [November 2024]
