Rowena Swanson

Rowena Weiss was born in Brooklyn on August 3, 1928, the daughter of Marmion Livingston Weiss (1895-1959) and Lenore Hartman (1897-1959).{{cite book | title=Who's Who In The West | publisher=Marquis Who’s Who | year=1976 | isbn=0-8379-0915-5 | url= https://archive.org/details/whoswhoinwest76-77marq/page/722/mode/2up?q=%22rowena+weiss%22 }} Wallace H. Weiss (1931-2011) was a younger brother.{{cite news | title=Wallace H. Weiss | newspaper=The Washington Post | date=November 13, 2011 | url=https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/washingtonpost/name/wallace-weiss-obituary?id=5979936}}{{cite web | title=Wallace Weiss Obituary | website=legacy.com | url=https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/myrtlebeachonline/name/wallace-weiss-obituary?id=13767304}} She attended Calvin Coolidge High School, where in 1943 she reported for the school magazine, The Courier.{{cite journal | title=Editorial Staff | journal=The Coolidge Courier | date=1943 | page=2 | url=

https://archive.org/details/dc-coolidge-high-school-courier-1943-1946/page/n15/mode/2up?q=%22rowena+weiss%22}} In 1949 she gained a Bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the Catholic University of America,{{cite journal | title=Degrees Conferred | journal=The George Washington University Bulletin | page=434 | year=1954 | url=

https://archive.org/details/gwu_bulletin_1954/page/434/mode/2up?q=%22rowena+weiss%22}} In 1948 she co-authored a paper with scientists at George Washington University School of Medicine‘s Department of Pharmacology, measuring absorption of the antibiotic para-aminosalicylic acid.{{cite journal | author1=E. Leong Way | author2=Paul K. Smith | author3=Donald L. Howie | author4=Rollan Swanson | title=The absorption, distribution, excretion and fate of para-aminosalicylic acid | journal=Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics | date=July 1948 | volume=93 | issue=3 | pages=368–382| pmid=18882143 }} In 1953 she gained a JD from George Washington University.

In 1954 Weiss helped to write up a 1951 Geological Survey investigation of the Phosphoria Formation undertaken on behalf of the US Atomic Energy Commission.{{cite book | last=Peterson | first=James Aurl | title=Stratigraphic sections of the Phosphoria Formation in Montana, 1951 | publisher= | url=https://du.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01UODE_INST/1gq64ta/alma991042618234702766 }} By 1956 she was working as Acquisitions Officer for the ASTIA Reference Center at the Library of Congress.{{cite tech report | author=Cruft Laboratory, Harvard University | title=Progress Report No. 39 | year=1956 | id=AD-93360 | url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0093360.pdf}}

At some point in the 1950s she took on the surname Swanson, presumably as the result of marriage.It is unclear whom Weiss married. The pharmacologist Rollan Swanson had been a collaborator on her 1948 paper. The information scientist Don R. Swanson was a contemporary with similar interests. She joined the Office of Research and Development at the US Patent Office, becoming interested in information retrieval there.{{cite journal | title=Patent Office Describes Progress in Retrieval Research | volume= | issue= | journal=Scientific Information Notes | date= August 1959| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VQZ6oYTiYjEC&pg=PA8}}

Swanson was Project Supervisor at the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) in the early 1960s, working with Harold Wooster. There, from 1959 onwards,{{cite book | first=Douglas | last=Englebart | chapter=Workstation History and The Augmented Knowledge Workshop | title=Proceedings of the ACM Conference on the History of Personal Workstations | year=1986 | location=New York | publisher=ACM Press | pages=87–100 | url=https://www.invisiblerevolution.net/timeline/notes-59-dougnotes.html}} she ensured the funding of Douglas C. Englebart's research into human-machine collaboration at the Stanford Research Institute,{{cite web | first=William | last=Mitchell | title=The Genesis of NASA RECON | url=https://openlib.org/home/krichel/courses/lis618/readings/mitchell_genes_nasa_recon/}} {{cite journal | title=ASOFR Provides Early Support for Principal Architect of Computer Revolution. | journal=Air Force Research Laboratory Research | date=May–Jun 1999 | url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA365042.pdf}} apparently surreptitiously rescuing Englebart's application from the 'rejection' pile to put it in the 'accepted for final review' pile.{{cite web | author=Air Force Research Laboratory History Program | title="Breakthrough" Technologies Developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory and its Predecessors | date=December 21, 2005 | page=81-83 | url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA528970.pdf}} Swanson helped Englebert turn his 1962 SRI report, 'Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework', into a book chapter in 1963. She also gave editorial assistance to the ASOFR-funded work of Calvin Mooers.{{cite tech report | first=Calvin | last=Mooers | title=Wanted: A Reactive Typewriter | publisher=Zator Company | date=October 1962 | id=AFOSR-2711 | page=iv | url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0400349.pdf }} Throughout the 1960s Swanson continued to organize funding for computer scientists and cybernetic researchers. She helped fund Marvin Minsky,{{cite book | first=Marvin | last=Minsky | chapter=Preface | title=Computation: Finite and Infinite Machines | publisher=Prentice-Hall| year=1967 | page=xii | url=https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Martin.Emms/2062/PossReading/finite_and_infinite_machines_minsky.pdf }} and was a friend and sponsor for Heinz von Foerster at the Biological Computer Laboratory.{{cite web | author1=Paul Weston | author2=Jan Müggenburg | author3=James Andrew Hutchinson | title=Kybernetik in Urbana | pages=126–139 | url=https://journals.univie.ac.at/index.php/oezg/article/download/3920/3667 }} She also organized funding for the work of Gotthard Günther and Ernst von Glasersfeld.{{cite web | title=Interview mit Heinz von Foerster | url=https://www.vordenker.de/hvf/kl_gg_hvf_interview.pdf }} Ernst von Glasersfeld recalled her sponsoring his own research alongside that of Gordon Pask, Warren McCulloch, Max Black and David Rothenberg, and introducing these disparate researchers to each other.{{cite journal | first=Ernst | last=von Glasersfeld | title=Remembering Gordon Pask | journal=Kybernetes | volume =30 | issue=7/8 | year=2001 | page=970 | doi=10.1108/03684920110396855 | quote=I first heard about Gordon Pask in the early 1960s when I received a contract from the US Air Force to do research in computational linguistics. Rowena Swanson, who monitored our team, operated on the wonderful principle that researchers she looked after should get to know each other in order to exchange ideas and to break down disciplinary enclosures. It took me quite some time to believe that there was no hidden agenda. It just did not seem plausible that military organisation should finance Warren McCulloch's modelling of neural networks, Heinz Von Foerster's efforts to establish a constructivist epistemology, Max Black's studies of the logic of semantics, David Rothenberg's quest for unifying principles in the perception of musical patterns, my own struggles with the structure of language, and Gordon Pask's revolutionary ideas about intellectual interaction between teachers, students, and human agents in general. }}

In 1966 she was Acting Director of the Directorate of Information Sciences at the AFOSR, as Harold Wooster took up the post of Director previously held by Thomas K. Burgess.{{cite web | first=Rowena | last=Swanson | title=Information Sciences, 1965 | year=1966 | url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0630521.pdf}} By 1967 she was a Project Scientist under Wooster, along with Eliot Sohmer.{{cite web | author=Air Force Office of Scientific Research | title=AFOSR Research: The Current Research Program, and a Summary of Research Accomplishments | year=1967 | url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0659366.pdf}} Another colleague was Lea M. Bohnert.{{cite web | first=Lea M. | last=Bohnert | title=Retrieval of Technical Documents | year=1967 | url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0664596.pdf}}

Addressing a 1970 workshop for military librarians, Frank Kurt Cylke paid tribute to the work of Wooster and Swanson at AFOSR: "Of course, Harold Wooster and Rowena Swanson are no longer concentrating their efforts upon the theoretical and practical problems that are present. Margrett Zenich, however, is still fighting the good fight."{{cite web | title=14th Military Librarians Workshop | year=1970 | publisher=Air Force Otfice of Scientific Research | url=https://higherlogicdownload.s3.amazonaws.com/SLA/ec95f0d5-acca-4a3d-b401-b10c0d4644f1/UploadedImages/AD0732461.pdf }} Gordon Pask, writing in 1973, acknowledged the patronage of the AFOSR's European office and emphasised the particular importance of Swanson's influence there:

{{quote|In common with others in this field, we owe a special debt to Prof. Rowena Swanson who insisted throughout the formative years from 1961 to 1967, when she served in that organisation [AFOSR], upon the proper communication and integration of ongoing research.{{cite book | first=Gordon | last=Pask | author-link=Gordon Pask | title=Conversation, Cognition and Learning: A Cybernetic Theory and Methodology | publisher=Elsevier | year=1973 | url=https://monoskop.org/images/1/17/Pask_Gordon_Conversation_Cognition_and_Learning_Cybernetic_Theory_and_Methodology.pdf }}}}

By 1968 Swanson had become Professor of Library and Information Science at the University of Denver's Graduate School of Librarianship.{{cite book | author=University of Denver, Graduate School of Librarianship | title=Catalog | year=1968 | page=13 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g4MaAAAAMAAJ&q=%22ROWENA+SWANSON%22}}{{cite journal | title=Information Science vis-a-vis Library School Curricula | journal=Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science | pages=x, 147}}

Swanson served as Technical Program Chairman for the American Society for Information Science (ASIS),{{cite journal | title=News From the Field | journal=College & Research Libraries News | volume=32 | issue=8 | year=1971 | url=https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/21836/27522 }} and was a regular contributor to the Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology (JASIST). In 1975 her paper 'Performing Evaluation Studies in Information Science' won the Best JASIST Paper Award.{{cite web | title=Best JASIST Paper Award | url=https://www.asist.org/programs-services/awards-honors/best-jasist-paper-award/jasist-recipients/ }}

In 1979 she retired from the University of Denver to become a "consulting resources specialist for information systems design at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management".{{cite journal | title=ASIS News | journal=Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science | volume=6 | year=1979 | page=35}}

• (with E. Leong Way, Paul K. Smith, Donald L. Howie and Rollan Swanson) {{cite journal | title=The absorption, distribution, excretion and fate of para-aminosalicylic acid | journal=Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics | volume=93 | issue=3 | date=July 1948 | pages=368–382| pmid=18882143 | author1=WAY EL | author2=SMITH PK | display-authors=0 }}
• (with Simon M. Newman and Kenneth C. Knowlton) {{cite tech report | title=A Notation System for Transliterating Technical and Scientific Texts for Use in Data Processing Systems | publisher=US Patent Office | year=1959 | id=R&D Report No. 15}}
• (with Harold Pfeffer) {{cite book | title=Parameters for an information retrieval system for chemical processes | publisher=Patent Office | year= 1961 | url=https://du.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01UODE_INST/1uqj623/cdi_hathitrust_hathifiles_hvd_32044031877293 }}
• {{cite tech report | title=The AFOSR Program in Information Systems Research | publisher= | year=1962 | url= }}
• {{cite tech report | title=Information Sciences 1965. Annual report no. 3, 1965. | publisher=Air Force Office of Scientific Research | date=January 1966 | id=AFOSR 66-0130 (AD-630 521). [Also listed as AFOSR 66-0878.] | url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0630521.pdf}}
• {{cite tech report | title=Cybernetics in Europe and the USSR – Activities, Plans and Impressions | publisher=Air Force Office of Scientific Research | year=1966 | id=AFOSR 66-0579 | url= }}
• {{cite tech report | title=Information System Networks... Let's Profit from What we Know | publisher=Air Force Office of Scientific Research | date=June 1966 | id=AFOSR 66-0873 | url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0637488.pdf }} Reprinted in {{cite book | editor-first=George | editor-last=Schecter | title=Information Retrieval | location=Washington D.C. | publisher=Thompson Book Company | year=1967 }}
• (with Harold Wooster) {{cite tech report | title=Information Sciences | publisher= | date= | id= | url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0659366.pdf}}
• {{cite journal | title=Information Sciences: Some research directions | journal=Air University Review | volume=17 | issue=3 | date=March–April 1966 | pages=56–66 }}
• {{cite tech report | title=Influences from Cybernetics on Information Sciences | publisher= | date= | url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0659366.pdf | id=}}
• {{cite tech report | title=Move The Information... A Kind of Missionary Spirit | publisher=Air Force Office of Scientific Research | date=June 1967 | id=ASOFR 67-1247 | url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0657794.pdf}}
• {{cite tech report | title=Information, An Exploitable Commodity | publisher=Air Force Office of Scientific Research | date=April 1968 | id=ASOFR 68-0652 | url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD0677197.pdf}}
• {{cite journal | title=User-oriented information systems | journal=American Documentation | volume=20 | date=July 1969 | pages=279–280| doi=10.1002/asi.4630200315 | issue=3 | last1=Swanson | first1=Rowena W. | display-authors=0 }}
• {{cite tech report | title=Watersheds and Information Flow | publisher=Air Force Office of Scientific Research | date=January 1969 | id=AFOSR 69-0082TR | url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/AD0681130.pdf }}
• {{cite tech report | title=Information Entrepreneurship and Education... Prescriptions for Technological Change | publisher=Air Force Office of Scientific Research | date=March 1969 | id=AFOSR 69-0458TR | url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD0686093.pdf }}
• {{cite tech report | title=A look at technologies vis-à-vis information handling techniques | publisher=Air Force Office of Scientific Research | id=AFOSR 69-1205TR | url=https://du.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/permalink/01UODE_INST/1gq64ta/alma991025134679702766 }}
• {{cite tech report | title=Trends in Information Handling in the United States | publisher=Air Force Office of Scientific Research | date=May 1970 | url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD0710322.pdf | id=AFOSR 70-2145TR }} Prepared for presentation at the 1970 Conference of the Institute of Information Scientists held at the University of Reading, Reading, England, 10-12 April 1970.
• {{cite journal | title=The information business is a people business | journal=Information Storage and Retrieval | volume=6 | issue=4 | date=October 1970 | pages=351–361| doi=10.1016/0020-0271(70)90028-8 | last1=Swanson | first1=Rowena W. | display-authors=0 }}
• {{cite journal | title=Moshava, Kibbutz, and Moshav: Patterns of Jewish Rural Settlement and Development in Palestine by D. Weintraub, M. Lissak and Y. Azmon | journal=Technology and Culture | volume=11 | issue=4 | date=October 1970 | page=645-648 | doi=10.1353/tech.1970.a894067 }}
• {{cite journal | title=Comment | journal=Journal of Documentation | volume=28 | date=June 1972 | page=163}}
• {{cite journal | title=Review: Computer systems in the library: A handbook for managers and designers: Stanely J. Swihart and Beryl F. Hefley. Melville, Los Angeles, California (1973) | journal=Information Storage and Retrieval | volume=10 | issue=11–12 | pages=423–424| doi=10.1016/0020-0271(74)90055-2 }}
• {{cite journal | title=Review: The bowker annual of library and book trade information: Jeanne J. Henderson, Managing Editor; Frank L. Schick, Consulting Editor. 18th Edition, 1973. R.R. Bowker company, New York, 1973. 548 pp. $19.50 | journal=Information Storage and Retrieval | year=1973 }}
• {{cite tech report | title=System Analysis + Work Study = Library Accountability | id=SEMBCS-OR-1 | publisher=Southeast Metropolitan Board of Cooperative Services | location=Denver, Colorado | year=1974 | url= https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED088459.pdf }}
• (with Anthony Debons) {{cite journal | title=Design and Evaluation of Information Systems |journal=Annual Review of Information Science and Technology | volume=9 | year=1974 | url= }}
• {{cite journal | title=Performing evaluation studies in information science | journal=Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology | date=May 1975}}
• {{cite book | chapter=Cost Analysis and Budgeting | title=19th Military Librarians Workshop | year=1975 | pages=9–10 | url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/tr/pdf/ADA031444.pdf }}
• (with Claude J. Johns, Jr.) {{cite tech report| title=Some Highlight Findings of the ASIS Membership Survey | journal=SIC/ED Newsletter | id=ED-76-1 | date=January 1976 | pages=8-10}}
• {{cite journal | title=A Work Study of the Review Production Process | journal=Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology | date=January 1976 }}
• {{cite journal | title=Review: Proceedings of the 1975 Clinic on Library Applications of Data Processing: The Use of Computers in Literature Searching and Related Reference Activities in Libraries. F. Wilfrid Lancaster, Ed. | journal=Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology | volume=28 | issue=2 | year=1977 | pages=125–126 }}
• {{cite journal | title=Education for Information Science as a Profession | journal=Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology | volume=29 | issue=3 | date=May 1978 | pages=148–155 | doi=10.1002/asi.4630290308 | last1=Swanson | first1=Rowena Weiss | display-authors=0 }}
• (with James A. Engler) {{cite journal | title=Probing Private Files: Polaroid Corporation's Photo Index |journal=Database | volume=3 | pages=57–67}}
• {{cite journal | title=Probing Private Files | journal=Database | volume=3 | year=1980 | pages=70–76}}
• {{cite tech report | title=Study of Online Instruction Methodologies for the DTIC Training Program | publisher=Defense Technical Information Center | date=February 1981 | id=AD-A101 460 | url=https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA101460.pdf }}

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Category:1928 births

Category:Scientists from Brooklyn

Category:American information scientists

Category:Air Force Research Laboratory people

Category:American women librarians

Category:University of Denver faculty