Karl Heumann

Karl Heumann (1921-1993) was an American specialist in chemical information.

Life

Karl Fredrich Heumann was born on March 3, 1921 in Chicago. He received BS (1942) and MS (1943) degrees in chemistry from Iowa State College (later Iowa State University) and the PhD degree in chemistry from the University of Illinois, Urbana in 1951. He joined the US Navy in 1944 for two years and in fall 1946 he became Technical Aide to the Chemical-Biological Coordination Center of the National Research Council.

His interests included research dealing with catalytic hydrogenations, furans, quinone diamines, scientific literature, chemical structure and biological activity, punched cards, mechanical aids in literature searching, international documentation, and scientific editing.

Heuman worked as a chemist in the Technical Information Section, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co. 1950-52; Director of the Chemical-Biological Coordination Center, National Research Council 1952-55; Researcher, Chemical Abstracts, American Chemical Society (ACS) 1955-59; Director Office of Documentation, National Research Council, 1959-66; Federation for American Societies for Experimental Biology, Bethesda, MD: Assistant Executive Editor, 1966-67; Executive Editor 1967-68; Director of Editorial and Information Services 1968-71; Director of Official Publication 1971-85. Executive Editor of the Federation Proceedings and the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. He died in 1993.

Contributions

Karl Heumann advanced the quality of chemical documentation and the coordination of biological and chemical documentation needed for addressing health and pollution issues.

Publications

• Part one. Synthesis of analogs of podophyllotoxin. Abstract of PhD thesis. [1]
• "The Chemical-Biological Center: An experiment in documentation. With R. L. Beard. Science NS 116, no 3021 (Nov 21, 1952): 553-554.
• "Forms for Literature Citations." With others. Science 120, issue 3129 (1954): 1038-1041.
• "Data Processing for Scientists." Science 124, issue 3226 (1956): 773-777.
• "Symposium on Error Control in the Chemical Literature Introductory Remarks." Journal of Chemical Documentation 6, no. 3 (Aug 1966): 125. [2]
• A Scientific And Technical Information Center for Chile. Santiago, Chile: Consejo de Rectores de las Universidades Chilenas, Centro Nacional de Información y Documentación, 1968. [3]
• "An international working group in journal cooperation." IEEE Transactions on Professional Communications PC-18, no 3 (Sept I973): 121-122. [4]

Offices

• American Documentation Institute. President, 1959.
• American Chemical Society. Division of Chemical Information. Chairman, 1960.
• International Federation of Documentation. Vice-President, 1961-64.
• Council of Biology Editors. Secretary, 1969-74; Chairman, 1976.

Awards

• Council of Biology Editors. Award for Excellence in Science Communication, 1985.

Further reading

• Gravestone. Find a grave. [5]
• Wood, G. Congdon. " Chemical-Biological Documentation: A New Approach." American Institute of Biological Sciences [A. I. B. S.] Bulletin 3 no 5 (Oct 1952): 16-18.