I received my Ph.D. degree from the University of London in 1977, studying with B.C. Brookes at the School of Library, Archive and Information Studies, University College, London. I was on the faculty of the Department of Information Science, City University, London from 1975 to 1985, with visiting appointments at the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada in 1979-1980, and the Free University, Berlin in 1981-1982. In 1985 I was appointed Professor in the Department of Library and Information Science, School of Communication, Information and Library Studies, Rutgers University, where I am currently located. In 1994 -95, I was a Visiting Scientist at the Institute for Systems Science, National University of Singapore, and in 1996 I was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Tampere, Finland.

I've been Chair of the ACM Special Interest Group in Information Retrieval (SIGIR) and President of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (ASIST), and have received the ASIST Information Science Teacher Award, the ASIST Research Award, and the ASIST Award of Merit.