Rebekah (Becky) Willson
Associate Professor
- PhD, School of Information Studies, Charles Sturt University
- MLIS, School of Library & Information Studies, University of Alberta
- BA Honors (Psychology), University of Alberta
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Dr Rebekah (Becky) Willson is an associate professor at the School of Information Studies at 海角社区 (Montr茅al, Canada). Before coming to 海角社区, Dr Willson spent three years as a Lecturer in Information Science in the Department of Computer and Information Sciences at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK. Dr Willson鈥檚 research examines the information people need and how they find, share, and use that information. Her research particularly focuses on often forgotten or marginalised individuals who are undergoing transitions and living with uncertainty, including academics working on short-term contracts, early career researchers dealing with COVID-19, and early career librarians.
- INFS 691 Academic Librarianship
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Conference Chair: ISIC 2026: The Information Behaviour Conference
Director at Large: Association for Information Science and Technology
Review Editor:听Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology
Past President:
Editorial Board Member:听Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science
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| 2025-2027 | SSHRC Insight Development Grant: Transitioning into academic libraries: The information behaviour of library students and early career librarians. (Principal Investigator) |
| 2021鈥�2023 | SSHRC Insight Development Grant: Precarity and information marginalization: Exploring how academic casualization complicates workplace information practices.听(Principal Investigator) |
| 2021-2024 | NSERC Alliance Grant:听Defending our cyberspace: AI-powered search engine for cyber threat intelligence听(Co-Investigator) |
Willson, R., Stewart-Robertson, O., Julien, H., & Given, L. M. (2025). Academic casualization and precarity: A scoping review. Higher Education Research and Development. Advance online publication.
Ferguson, R. D., Willson, R., & Moffatt, K. (2025). "Am I being responsible?": Navigating coming-of-age transitions through personal financial information management (PFIM). Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. Advance online publication.
Willson, R., Julien, H., Stewart-Robertson, O., & Given, L. M. (2025). 鈥楾here鈥檚 no onboarding, no orientation:鈥� the role of neoliberal university structures in the lives of precarious academics. Information Research, 30(CoLIS), 540鈥�550.
Willson, R., Stewart-Robterson, O., Julien, H., & Given, L. M. (2024). 鈥淵ou need to step back when you're contract faculty鈥�: Information practices and care in casual academic. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 61(1), 685-690.
Willson, R., Stewart-Robertson, O., Julien, H., & Given, L. M. (2024). Isolated, individualised, and immobilised: Information behaviour in the context of academic casualisation. In Proceedings of ISIC: the information behaviour conference, Aalborg, Denmark, 26-29 August, 2024. Information Research, 29(2), 652鈥�668.
Makri, S. & Willson, R. (2024). Current trends in information behavior research: Expanding beyond search, seeking, finding and behavior. In D. Baker & L. Ellis (Eds.) Encyclopedia of libraries, librarianship, and information science (pp. 493-500). Elsevier.
Given, L. M., Case, D. O., & Willson, R. (2023). Looking for Information: Examining research on how people engage with information (5th ed.). Emerald.
Willson, R. (2022). 鈥淏ouncing ideas鈥� as a complex information practice: Information seeking, sharing, creation, and cooperation. Journal of Documentation, 78(4), 800-816.
Willson, R. (2022). Identifying and leveraging collegial and institutional supports for impact. In W. Kelly (Ed.) The impactful academic: Building a research career that makes a difference (pp. 13-28). Bingley, UK: Emerald.
Rowley, K. & Willson, R. (2022). Scotland鈥檚 public libraries are nothing but practical when it comes to deselection. Library and Information Research. Advance online publication.
Nicol, E., Willson, R., Ruthven, I., Elsweiler, D., & Buchanan, G. (2022). Information intermediaries and information resilience: Working to support marginalised groups. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 59(1), 469-473. Pittsburgh, USA.
Ayeni, P. & Willson, R. (2022). Investigating open access publishing practices of early and mid-career researchers in humanities and social sciences disciplines. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 59(1), 398-403.
Willson, R., Makri, S., McKay, D., & Ayeni, P. (2022). Precarity and progression during a pandemic. Preliminary findings from a study of early career academics鈥� information behaviour during COVID-19. In Proceedings of ISIC: the information behaviour conference, Berlin, Germany, 26-29 September, 2022. Information Research, 27(Special issue), isic2225.
Willson, R. & Given, L. M. (2020). 鈥淚鈥檓 in sheer survival mode鈥�: Information behaviour and affective experiences of early career academics. Library and Information Science Research, 42(2), 101014.
Willson, R. (2019). Transitions Theory and liminality in information behaviour research: Applying new theories to examine the transition to early career academic. Journal of Documentation, 75(4), 838-856.
McKenzie, P. & Willson, R. (2019). Transitions and social interaction: Making sense of self and situation through engagement with others. In C. Blake & C. Brown (Eds.), Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 56(1), 459-462. Melbourne, Australia.
Willson, R. (2018). 鈥淪ystemic Managerial Constraints鈥�: How universities influence the information behaviour of HSS early career academics. Journal of Documentation, 74(4), 862-879.
Given, L. M., & Willson, R. (2018). Information technology and the humanities scholar: Documenting digital research practices. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 69(6), 807-819.