View article

The origin of this Festschrift could be traced to a few March days in Hundested, Denmark, in 2001. The event taking place in this small fishing town in the northern parts of Sealand was a PhD course in bibliometrics organized by Professor Olle Persson together with professors Peter Ingwersen and Irene Wormell. Apart from being an excellent course, the Hundested event was also important for bringing together what could be seen as laying the foundation for ‘the second generation’of Nordic bibliometrics. As a result, we could see a similar course given in Umeå in 2008, where the core group of teachers were participants of the original course; and also, ending up being the editors of this Festschrift in honour of Olle Persson on his 60th birthday. Since the 1970s, Olle Persson has been one of the pioneers in Nordic library and information science (LIS) research, analyzing information retrieval, information behaviour and scholarly communication; and of course, the line of research for which he is most closely associated with nowadays: bibliometrics. However, it is not only through his own research that Olle has become a central figure in Nordic LIS, he has also been instrumental in establishing LIS as an academic field of research, where maybe the most tangible effect is the founding of the Nordic Research School in Library and Information Science (NORSLIS) on professor Persson’s initiative. And obviously, we must also take into account the number of PhD students Olle has seen through their education as academic supervisor/advisor both in sociology and LIS. As we all know, Olle Perssons impact is not just limited to Nordic academia and …