Audience Tools

Specializations

  • Information, Knowledge and Successful Aging
  • Personal Information Management
  • Search

Biography

William Jones is a Research Associate Professor Emeritus in the Information School at the University of Washington where he works on the challenges of “Keeping Found Things Found” (kftf.ischool.washington.edu, keepingfoundthingsfound.com). He has published in the areas of personal information management (PIM), human-computer interaction, information retrieval (search), and human cognition/memory. William Jones wrote the book "Keeping Found Things Found: The Study and Practice of Personal Information Management" and, more recently, the three-part series, "The Future of Personal Information: Part 1: Our Information, Always & Forever;" "Part 2: Transforming Technologies to Manage Our Information;" and "Part 3: Building a Better World With Our Information." Dr. Jones holds 5 patents relating to search and PIM (2 more pending). His current special area of research is “Information, Knowledge and Successful Aging.”

Education

  • Ph D, Cognitive Psychology, Carnegie-Mellon University, 1982
  • MS, Carnegie-Mellon University, 1980
  • BS, University of Kansas, 1975

Memberships

  • American Philosophical Association
  • American Society for Information Science & Technology
  • Association for Computing Machinery
  • Institute for Humane Studies, George Mason University
  • Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling Green State University

Publications and Contributions

  • Conference Paper
    Making It Real: Towards Practical Progress in the Management of Personal Information (2016)
    ACM CHI 2016 alt.chi Authors: William Jones, Caleb Thorsteinson, Brandon Thepvongsa, Tanner Garrett
  • Book, Scholarly-New
    Building a Better World with Our Information: The Future of Personal Information Management, Part 3 (2015)
    Author: William Jones
  • Conference Paper
    How Do People Re-find Files, Emails and Web Pages? (2014)
    Proceedings of iConference 2014 Authors: William Jones, Abe Wenning, Harry Bruce
  • Book, Chapter in Scholarly Book-New
    Transforming Technologies to Manage Our Information: The Future of Personal Information Management, Part 2 (2013)
    Synthesis Lectures on Information Concepts, Retrieval, and Services, 5(4), pp. 1–179 Author: William Jones
  • Conference Position Paper
    Places of Our Own for Digital Information: Building Structures that Work for Individuals and Small Groups (2012)
    PIM 2012, Workshop in association with the Computer-Supported Collaborative Work conference (CSCW 2012) Author: William Jones
  • Conference Paper
    Representing Our Information Structures for Research and for Everyday Us (2012)
    Proceedings of the 30th International conference extended abstracts on Human factors in computing systems, ACM (2012) Authors: William Jones, Ken Anderson, Steve Whittaker
  • Book, Scholarly-Revised
    The Future of Personal Information Management. Part I (2012)
    Author: William Jones
  • Conference Paper
    Many Views, Many Modes, Many Tools... One Structure: Towards a Non-disruptive Integration of Personal Information (2011)
    Proceedings of the 22nd ACM conference on hypertext and hypermedia, pp. 113-122 Authors: William Jones, K M Anderson
  • Journal Article, Academic Journal
    Seeking an ideal solution to the management of personal information collections (2011)
    Information Research, 16(1), pp. paper 462 Authors: Harry Bruce, A G Wenning, Elisabeth Jones, Vinson Julia, William Jones
  • Conference Paper
    XooML: XML in Support of Many Tools Working on a Single Organization of Personal Information (2011)
    iConference 2011 Author: William Jones
  • Journal Article, Academic Journal
    No knowledge but through information (2010)
    First Monday, 15(9) Author: William Jones
  • Conference Paper
    Planz to Put Our Digital Information in Its Place (2010)
    CHI Annual Conference Authors: B Sethanandha, D. Hou, E S Bi, William Jones, J Gemmell
  • Book, Chapter in Scholarly Book-New
    Personal Information Management (2009)
    The Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science (ELIS) Author: William Jones
  • Conference Paper
    Planz: Writing New Stories for the Same Old File System (2009)
    PIM - Personal Information Management Workshop Authors: B.D. Sethanandha, D. Hou, E S Bi, William Jones
  • Conference Paper
    Providing for Paper, Place and People in Personal Projects (2009)
    PIM - Personal Information Management Workshop Authors: J Vinson, William Jones, Harry Bruce
  • Conference Paper
    Better to Organize Personal Information by Folders Or by Tags?: The Devil Is in the Details (2008)
    ASIS&T Annual Meeting Authors: A. Civan, William Jones
  • Conference Poster
    I Give Up! Five Factors that Contribute to the Abandonment of Information Management Strategies (2008)
    ASIS&T Annual Meeting Authors: Elisabeth Jones, Harry Bruce, Predrag Klasnja, William Jones
  • Conference Paper
    The Personal Project Planner: Planning to Organize Personal Information (2008)
    CHI Annual Conference Authors: A Civan, P Klasnja, M A, William Jones
  • Book, Chapter in Scholarly Book-New
    Human Cognition and Personal Information Management (2007)
    Handbook of Applied Cognition Authors: William Jones, B. Ross
  • Book, Scholarly-New
    Keeping Found Things Found: The Study and Practice of Personal Information Management (2007)
    Author: William Jones
  • Journal Article, Academic Journal
    Personal Information Management (2007)
    Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST), 41(Unknown Issue), pp. 453-504 Author: William Jones
  • Book, Scholarly-New
    Personal Information Management (2007)
    Authors: William Jones, J. Teevan
  • Conference Paper
    Planning Personal Projects and Organizing Personal Information (2006)
    ASIS&T Annual Meeting Authors: A Foxley, C Munat, William Jones, Harry Bruce
  • Conference Paper
    Project Contexts to Situate Personal Information (2006)
    SIGIR 2006, Seattle, WA Authors: A Foxley, William Jones, Harry Bruce
  • Conference Paper
    Don't Take My Folders Away! Organizing Personal Information to Get Things Done (2005)
    CHI Annual Conference Authors: A J Phuwanartnurak, William Jones
  • Conference Paper
    The Universal Labeler: Plan the Project and Let Your Information Follow (2005)
    ASIS&T Annual Meeting Authors: C Munat, William Jones, Harry Bruce
  • Journal Article, Academic Journal
    Information behavior that keeps found things found (2004)
    Information Research, 10(1) Authors: Harry Bruce, William Jones, S. Dumais
  • Conference Paper
    Keeping and Re-finding information on the Web: What do people do and what do they need? (2004)
    ISBN/ISSN: 0044-7870 Authors: Harry Bruce, William Jones, S. Dumais

Presentations

  • Successfully Aging with Our Information and Our Information Tools (2022)
    2022 ASIS&T Annual Meeting - Pittsburgh, PA
  • Many Modes, Many Tools... One Structure: Towards a Non-disruptive Integration of Personal Information (2011)
    22nd ACM conference on Hypertext and hypermedia - Eindhoven, NL
  • Seeking an ideal solution to the management of personal information collections (2010)
    Annual Conference, ISIC - Information Seeking in Context
  • Personal information management as a study and a practice (2009)
    University of Washington - Seattle, WA
  • Providing for paper, place and people in personal projects (2009)
    Annual Conference, PIM - Personal Information Management - Austin, TX
  • Putting our digital information in its place (2009)
    Massachusetts Institute of Technology - Cambridge, MA
  • Putting our digital information in its place (2009)
    Industry Talk, Microsoft Research - Redmond, WA
  • My so-called life on the Web (a panel) (2008)
    Annual Meeting, ASIS&T - American Society for Information Science & Technology
  • PIM 2008 workshop (2008)
    Annual Conference, SIGCHI - Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM) - Florence, Italy
  • The World Is at My Doorstep ?And the House Is A Mess: Putting our information in its place in a digital age (2008)
    SLA - Special Libraries Association - Seattle, WA
  • "Get Real!" What's Wrong with HCI Prototyping And How Can We Fix It? (2007)
    Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, SIGCHI - Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM) - San Jose, CA
  • Personal information for a World as We Want it to Be (2007)
    Annual Conference, INFORMS - Institute for Operation Research and the Management Sciences - Seattle, WA
  • Personal information for a World as We Want it to Be (2007)
    Enschede, Netherlands
  • Personal information Management and the Disappearing Desktop (2007)
    Royal Institute of Technology - Stockholm, Sweden
  • Personal information management for a world as we want it to be (2007)
    Telematica Institute - Enschede, Netherlands
  • Personal Information Management in Theory and Practice (2007)
    Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, SIGCHI - Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction (ACM) - San Jose, CA
  • Now Do You Know Where Your Information Is?: Perspectives on the Present and Future of Personal Information Management (2003)
    Annual Meeting, ASIS&T - American Society for Information Science & Technology - Long Beach, CA