739 E. Winslow Farm Drive
Bloomington, IN 47401 USA
Research and Creative Activities
During the latter part of my career as a chemistry librarian, I had a strong interest in the use of the Internet and the World-Wide
Web
by chemists and other scientists both as a complement
to the formal system
of publication and as a potential replacement for that system. As a
consequence, I was interested in methods of coding chemical structures and
data for presentation on the Web, XML and Chemical Mark-up Language
(CML),
and the associated efforts to apply metadata to chemical objects. I was a
participant in the NIH-funded Chemical
Informatics and Cyberinfrastructure Collaboratory project at IU, and in
the Reciprocal Net, an NSF-funded project of the IU Molecular Structure Center
that is part of the US National
Science Digital Library. Another area of interest was the scholarship
of teaching and learning about scientific information sources, particularly
in chemistry. In that regard, we maintained for many years at
Indiana University a portal to
chemistry Web sites, CHEMINFO, and a guide to Web sites of interest to
chemists, SIRCh: Selected Internet
Resources in Chemistry. In 2006/2007, I converted the SIRCh pages to Wiki format, initially on a
server at Indiana University
and in 2010 at Wikibooks, the free
book service offered at Wikipedia.
Teaching and Administration
From 1976-2004, I taught a one-semester-hour course entitled "Chemical Information Sources and Services". In 2010 the lecture notes
for the course were published in a Wikibook format.
For many years, I also taught the Literature of Science and Technology course in IU's School of
Library and Information Science.
In the fall of 2001, we began to teach both undergraduate and
graduate programs in chemical informatics at
Indiana University. On July 1, 2003, I assumed the position of
Director of the Chemical Informatics and Bioinformatics Programs in the School of Informatics where I helped develop a Graduate Certificate in
Chemical Informatics Program, the MS in Chemical Informatics (no longer offered), and the Chemical Informatics track of the PhD in Informatics. On October 1,
2007, I retired from Indiana University.
Service
As liaison to the School of Library and Information Science (now a department of the combined School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering), I
advised many graduates of the joint SLIS/Department of Chemistry MLS/MIS Chemical Information Specialist Program over the years.
In the past, I was privileged to chair both the Special Libraries
Association Chemistry
Division and the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical
Information
(CINF).
Honors and Awards
In 1998, the American Chemical Society Division of Chemical Information (CINF) bestowed on me its highest honor, the Herman Skolnik
Award, and in
2003, the CINF Meritorious Service Award.
In 2007, I was selected to receive the
Patterson-Crane Award of the American Chemical Society's
Columbus and Dayton Sections. That same year, the Special Libraries Association elected me to its
Hall of Fame. The SLA Chemistry
Division later created
the Wiggins-Roth Award for Outstanding Service, named for me and
long-time CalTech
chemistry librarian, Dana Roth. At Indiana University, I was selected as the honoree for the William Evans Jenkins Award for Outstanding Librarianship
in 1993. Service
on the Bloomington Faculty Council led to the IU Bloomington Distinguished Service Award in 1999 and the systemwide (all eight IU campuses) W. George Pinnell Award for
Outstanding Service in 2000. The Indiana
University School of Library and Information Science recognized me as a distinguished alumnus in 2001.
Hobbies, etc.
On a personal level, I am a musician of sorts (I play
trombone and occasionally bang on a banjo). In 1978, I re-founded the Bloomington Community
Band, an organization that had
gone dormant for several years, but is thriving today with over 60 members
and a vibrant concert schedule. I also play in the Bloomington Bones, the Heritage Hall Ramblers Dixieland Band, and the Hungry
Five German Band. In retirement, I have kept
my fingers in some computer work
as the listowner of several discussion lists and webmaster for some of the organizations with which I am affiliated, among them the Indiana Chapter of Compassion &
Choices. I volunteered for 9 years in the Monroe County History Center Research Library, where I created several indexes to documents in their collection. I also served on the MCHC
Board of Directors, and am currently serving on the Board of the Bloomington Community
Band. Netflix and other streaming services have incrasingly found a place in our home
since
retirement, and I have discovered a
real addiction to jigsaw puzzles and Scrabble. For over 45 years, I
have been collecting pewter, for which I created the web site
Hoosier Pewter to help keep track of the many pieces of pewter that I own.
