Roland Schwänzl, electronic information and
communication protagonist is dead

Roland Schwänzl, protagonist in the field of electronic 
information and communication in mathematics and beyond, 
died of cancer on July 29, 2004 in Osnabrück at the 
age of 52.

The past 15 years have seen dramatic changes in the way 
scientists provide information and communicate with each 
other. New technologies such as the Internet, the World 
Wide Web, fast computers, and cheap storage media
provided the basis for this development. Without the
work of many visionaries who investigate theoretically 
how things should be and without the implementations of 
experimentalists who explore how things can be achieved, 
the progress we have experienced would not have been 
possible.

Roland, deeply rooted in algebraic topology, his field 
of mathematical interest, was one of the volunteers who 
spent lots of time to make the visions and promises of 
electronic information and communication come true for 
the scientific community. He was on either sides, the 
theoretical and the practical, of the development. He 
had his own visions, he warned against misconceptions,
he fought against certain commercialization trends in 
the world of science, but he also worked hard in 
collaboration with others on finding practical
solutions.  

Roland was one of the fathers of Math-Net, an 
electronic information and communication system for 
mathematics, that was developed in Germany and is now 
in world-wide use. His special contribution to Math-Net
was MPRESS, a "Mathematical PREprint Search System", 
that was implemented in Osnabrück under his leadership. 
Roland recognized the importance of metadata and became 
very active in the Dublin Core Inititiative providing, 
for instance, one of the first production 
implementations of Dublin Core. Together with
his collaborators he was also an active RDF implementor, 
co-authoring, e.g., the DCMI specification on the 
deployment of DC in RDF.

Roland was engaged in many projects aiming at improving 
information and communication in science, and in 
particular, at making scientific documents openly 
accessible. These projects often involved work with 
scientists from a variety of other disciplines, 
librarians, and other information providers. Examples 
of such projects that have significantly changed the 
information landscape are Carmen, ELib, Math&Industry, 
and Dissertationen Online.

Beginning with the creation of the "IuK-Initiative" of 
the German Scientific Societies in 1995, Roland had been 
one of the mathematical IuK representatives, and he 
chaired its Executive Board from 2000 to 2004. Roland 
was the Director of the "Institut für wissenschaftliche 
Information e.V." in Osnabrück since its foundation in 
2000. Needless to say that Roland also played a 
particular role in the IMU Committee on Electronic 
Information and Communication as a member of its 
Technical Advisory Board.

It was not always easy to work with Roland. His e-mails
were often terse and he fought for his opinions with 
passionate advocacy. He was full of ideas and plans. 
His untimely death left a void, and we will particularly 
miss the intense intellectual dispute with Roland. 

He is survived by his wife, Ingrid Mühlens-Schwänzl, 
and daughters Iris and Isabelle.


M. Grötschel