William Goffman

William Goffman (born January 28, 1924 in Cleveland , Ohio , † February 29, 2000 in Bratenahl ) was an American information scientist.

Life

After attending a high school in Glenview in 1943, William Goffman was called up to the United States Army Air Corps , where he trained as a pilot and then flew combat missions in the Pacific during World War II . After the war he studied mathematics at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and received his doctorate in 1954. During his studies and a few years afterwards, he also worked as a pilot for the airline Pan American World Airways (Pan Am). In 1959 he became an employee of the Center for Documentation and Communication Research at Western Reserve University (since 1967 Case Western Reserve University ) in Cleveland. In 1968 he became a full professor at that university's School of Library Science, and from 1971 to 1977 he was dean. In this function, he supported various multidisciplinary projects on computer applications at the university, especially in health sciences at the School of Medicine, where, in addition to his work at the School of Library Science, he was professor in the biometrics department from 1980 until his retirement in 1986.

With the rapid development of computing technology in the 1960s, the use of bibliographic databases and information retrieval became important elements in information science . Goffman achieved significant improvements in information retrieval through the use of multi-valued logic , through efficient search strategies and through simplified search queries, including those based on citation analysis . He also turned the by Samuel C. Bradford discovered and out of bibliometrics known law of distribution of scientific literature on the acquisition strategy and the stock build scientific libraries. He became well known for his mathematical modeling of the emergence, growth and dissemination of scientific ideas based on epidemiological models. He developed original epidemiological models and thus contributed to the early development of bioinformatics .

In 1982 Goffman became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science .

Fonts (selection)

• W. Goffman: A searching procedure for information retrieval . In: Information Storage and Retrieval . tape 2 , no. 2 , 1964, p. 73-78 , doi : 10.1016 / 0020-0271 (64) 90006-3 .
• W. Goffman: An indirect method of information retrieval . In: Information Storage and Retrieval . tape 4 , no. 4 , 1968, p. 361-373 , doi : 10.1016 / 0020-0271 (68) 90030-2 .
• W. Goffman, VA Newill: Generalization of epidemic theory. An application to the transmission of ideas . In: Nature . tape 204 , no. 4955 , 1964, pp. 225-228 , doi : 10.1038 / 204225a0 .
• W. Goffman, VA Newill: Communication and epidemic processes . In: Proceedings of the Royal Society A . tape 298 , no. 1454 , 1967, pp. 316-334 , doi : 10.1098 / rspa.1967.0106 .
• W. Goffman: A mathematical method for analyzing the growth of a scientific discipline . In: Journal of the Association for Computing Machinery . tape 18 , no. 2 , 1971, p. 173-185 , doi : 10.1145 / 321637.321640 .
• W. Goffman, G. Harmon: Mathematical approach to the prediction of scientific discovery . In: Nature . tape 229 , 1971, pp. 103-104 , doi : 10.1038 / 229103a0 .
• William Goffman, Kenneth S. Warren: Scientific Information Systems and the Principle of Selectivity . Praeger, New York 1980, ISBN 978-0-275-90489-0 , pp. 189 .

literature

• Glynn Harmon: Remembering William Goffman: Mathematical information science pioneer . In: Information Processing and Management . tape 44 , no. 4 , 2008, p. 1634-1647 , doi : 10.1016 / j.ipm.2007.12.004 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ William Goffman, Thomas G. Morris: Bradford's law and library acquisitions . In: Nature . tape 226 , no. 5249 , 1970, pp. 922-923 , doi : 10.1038 / 226922a0 .
2. ^ W. Goffman: Mathematical approach to the spread of scientific ideas - the history of mast cell research . In: Nature . tape 212 , no. 5061 , 1966, pp. 449-452 , doi : 10.1038 / 212449a0 .