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Humanities
Toni WellerDepartment of Historical and Social StudiesVisiting Research Fellow in History Contact Details:
Dr Toni Weller is a visiting research fellow in history at De Montfort University and an honorary fellow at City University, London. She was educated at Cambridge University and City University, London and holds an MA in history and an MSc in information science, respectively. She also holds an Introductory Certificate to Teaching in Higher Education. She was awarded her PhD in 2007, which explored the social and cultural perceptions of information in nineteenth century England through cultural ephemera such as etiquette books and Victorian periodicals. Her research won her Highly Commended Award in the Emerald/EFMD Outstanding Doctoral Research Awards 2008. Her research interests are focused around the interdisciplinary field of information history. Specifically, she is interested in how information was thought of and used in a social and cultural capacity, as a distinct move away from the traditions of thinking of information in terms of its technological or organisational tools and processes. Most of her work focuses on the long nineteenth century in Britain, but also has links to contemporary issues around the history and origins of our own information age. She published the first introductory textbook on information history in 2008 (Chandos Publishing, Oxford), and has lectured internationally on this young and dynamic field. Toni is editor of the international, peer-reviewed journal, Library and Information History (formerly Library History). She is also a reviewer for Cultural and Social History, Library and Information History, the Journal of Documentation, Book History, the Journal of Research Practice, and for the Journal of Librarianship and Information Science.
In 2007 she was elected Chair of the national Library and Information History Group, the first woman to hold the office since the Group was established in 1962. She is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals Policy Forum, a national body which meets tri-annually to discuss and form information policy for the Institute. Toni has taught on several undergraduate modules in the History Department at De Montfort University; as module leader for HIST 1014 Britain in Transition, 1760-1939, and for HIST 2002 Britain Since 1939. She has also taught on HIST 1009, The Making of the Modern World and HIST 1002 Presenting and Representing the Past. At City University, London she has taught at postgraduate level on research methods, the history and origins of the information society, an introduction to information history, and the history of information management. In recognition of her teaching, in June 2010 she was awarded the prestigious Vice-Chancellor’s Distinguished Teaching Award by De Montfort University, voted for by the students themselves. |
