Rowena Swanson

Rowena Weiss Swanson (born 1928) is an American information scientist. In the 1950s and 1960s she worked for the US Patent Office and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, helping to channel funding to computer scientists, cyberneticians and philosophers such as Douglas Engelbart, Calvin Mooers, Marvin Minsky, Calvin Mooers, Heinz von Foerster, Gotthard Günther, Ernst von Glasersfeld, Gordon Pask, Warren McCulloch, William L. Kilmer, David Rothenberg and Max Black. In the 1970s she was Professor of Library and Information Science at the University of Denver, before working for the United States Office of Personnel Management.

Early life and education

Rowena Weiss was born in Brooklyn on August 3, 1928, the daughter of Marmion Livingston Weiss (1895-1959) and Lenore Hartman (1897-1959). Wallace H. Weiss (1931-2011) was a younger brother. She attended Calvin Coolidge High School, where in 1943 she reported for the school magazine, ''The Courier''. In 1949 she gained a Bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the Catholic University of America, 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. In 1953 she gained a JD from George Washington University.

Defense career

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. By 1956 she was working as Acquisitions Officer for the ASTIA Reference Center at the Library of Congress.

At some point in the 1950s, she took on the surname Swanson, presumably as the result of marriage. She joined the Office of Research and Development at the US Patent Office, becoming interested in information retrieval there.

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, she ensured the funding of Douglas C. Englebart's research into human-machine collaboration at the Stanford Research Institute, apparently surreptitiously rescuing Englebart's application from the 'rejection' pile to put it in the 'accepted for final review' pile. 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. Throughout the 1960s Swanson continued to organize funding for computer scientists and cybernetic researchers. She helped fund Marvin Minsky, and was a friend and sponsor for Heinz von Foerster at the Biological Computer Laboratory. She also organized funding for the work of Gotthard Günther and Ernst von Glasersfeld. 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.

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. By 1967 she was a Project Scientist under Wooster, along with Eliot Sohmer. Another colleague was Lea M. Bohnert.

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." Gordon Pask, writing in 1973, acknowledged the patronage of the AFOSR's European office and emphasised the particular importance of Swanson's influence there:

Academic librarianship

By 1968, Swanson had become Professor of Library and Information Science at the University of Denver's Graduate School of Librarianship.

Swanson served as Technical Program Chairman for the American Society for Information Science (ASIS), 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.

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".

Works

* (with E. Leong Way, Paul K. Smith, Donald L. Howie and Rollan Swanson)
* (with Simon M. Newman and Kenneth C. Knowlton)
* (with Harold Pfeffer)
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* Reprinted in
* (with Harold Wooster)
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* 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.
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* (with Anthony Debons)
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* (with Claude J. Johns, Jr.)
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* (with James A. Engler)
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Swanson, Rowena
1928 births
Scientists from Brooklyn
American information scientists
Air Force Research Laboratory people
American women librarians
University of Denver faculty