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
Dr Rebekah (Becky) Willson is an associate professor at the School of Information Studies at McGill University (Montréal, Canada). Before coming to McGill, 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’s 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 601 Foundations of Information Studies
- INFS 615 Reference and Information Services
- INFS 691 Academic Librarianship
Conference Chair: ISIC 2026: The Information Behaviour Conference
Director at Large: Association for Information Science and Technology
Review Editor: Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology
Past President: Canadian Association for Information Science
Editorial Board Member: Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science
| 2025-2027 | SSHRC Insight Development Grant: Transitioning into academic libraries: The information behaviour of library students and early career librarians. (Principal Investigator) |
| 2021–2023 | SSHRC Insight Development Grant: Precarity and information marginalization: Exploring how academic casualization complicates workplace information practices. (Principal Investigator) |
| 2021-2024 | NSERC Alliance Grant: Defending our cyberspace: AI-powered search engine for cyber threat intelligence (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. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2025.2573983
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. http://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24990
Willson, R., Julien, H., Stewart-Robertson, O., & Given, L. M. (2025). ‘There’s no onboarding, no orientation:’ the role of neoliberal university structures in the lives of precarious academics. Information Research, 30(CoLIS), 540–550. https://doi.org/10.47989/ir30CoLIS52327
Willson, R., Stewart-Robterson, O., Julien, H., & Given, L. M. (2024). “You need to step back when you're contract faculty”: Information practices and care in casual academic. Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 61(1), 685-690. https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.1080
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), 652–668. https://doi.org/10.47989/ir292854
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). “Bouncing ideas” as a complex information practice: Information seeking, sharing, creation, and cooperation. Journal of Documentation, 78(4), 800-816. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-03-2021-0047
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’s public libraries are nothing but practical when it comes to deselection. Library and Information Research. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.29173/lirg795
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. https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.654
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. https://doi.org/10.1002/pra2.641
Willson, R., Makri, S., McKay, D., & Ayeni, P. (2022). Precarity and progression during a pandemic. Preliminary findings from a study of early career academics’ 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. https://doi.org/10.47989/irisic2225
Willson, R. & Given, L. M. (2020). “I’m in sheer survival mode”: Information behaviour and affective experiences of early career academics. Library and Information Science Research, 42(2), 101014. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2020.101014
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. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-12-2018-0207
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. https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/pra2.47
Willson, R. (2018). “Systemic Managerial Constraints”: How universities influence the information behaviour of HSS early career academics. Journal of Documentation, 74(4), 862-879. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-07-2017-0111
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. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24008