I. R. Willison held several senior posts in the British Museum Library from 1955 until his retirement in 1987. As Senior Research Fellow in the Institute of English Studies he has played a leading part in the development of book history as a field in the English-speaking world. He edited volume 4 of the New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature (Cambridge, 1972) and has authored numerous essays on bibliography, book history, and librarianship in Britain and in a global context. He was awarded a CBE for services to the History of the Book in 2005.