Joan Carol Warnow-Blewett (née Nelson) (December 11, 1931 – May 30, 2006) was an American

archivist An archivist is an information professional who assesses, collects, organizes, preserves, maintains control over, and provides access to Document, records and archives determined to have long-term value. The records maintained by an archivist c ...

and staff member of the American Institute of Physics (AIP) for 32 years.

Early life

Warnow-Blewett was born to parents David Nelson and Edith Nelson (née Sjölander), American immigrants who were born in

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden,The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names states that the country's formal name is the Kingdom of SwedenUNGEGN World Geographical Names, Sweden./ref> is a Nordic country located on ...

Career

In 1965, Warnow-Blewett was hired at American Institute of Physics (AIP) as Librarian of the Niels Bohr Library. In 1974, she was promoted to Associate Director for the Center for History of Physics. From 1986 to 1989, she was a council member of the

Society of American Archivists The Society of American Archivists is the oldest and largest archivist association in North America, serving the educational and informational needs of more than 5,000 individual archivist and institutional members. Established in 1936, the organi ...

Contribution to scientific collaboration

Warnow-Blewett's work was a significant influence on the book, ''Structures of Scientific Collaboration'' by Wesley Shrum, Joel Genuth and Ivan Chompalov. Starting in 1989, she assembled a multi-disciplinary team including social sciences, history and archives. This team collected data on 60 scientific collaborations over the span of a decade. They coded the interviews with the collaborative teams in order to create a massive database covering themes such as "invention and practice; and issues of specialization, decision-making, values, subcontracting, instrumentation, funding and, of course, credit allocation."

Personal life

Warnow-Blewett was married three times. Her first marriage, which was until 1964, was to inventor Morton Warnow, with whom she had three children. In 1983, she married physicist John Paul Blewett and was married to Blewett until his death in 2000. Her third marriage was to physics historian, Martin Klein. Warnow-Blewett died in

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, on May 30, 2006. She was survived by three children, Paul Warnow, Kimmen Sjolander, and

Tandy Warnow Tandy Warnow is an American computer scientist and Grainger Distinguished Chair in Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign.Tandy Warnow's , retrieved 2020-09-10. She is known for her work on the reconstruction of evolutio ...

Works and publications

Between 1970 and 2001, Warnow-Blewett published 60 works in 105 publications. She continued to publish after her retirement from the AIP in August 1997. ;Selected notable publications: * * *

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Warnow-Blewett, Joan 1931 births 2006 deaths American archivists Female archivists American librarians American women librarians