Life has been a little topsy-turvy of late in Dewey editorial land. As noted earlier, after almost 20 years at the helm as Editor in Chief of the DDC, Joan Mitchell retired at the end of last week. This week has seen the appointment of a new Editor in Chief. Quoting from the press release put out by OCLC:
Michael Panzer, formerly Assistant Editor, has been named
the 10th Editor-in-Chief of the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system.
Mr. Panzer . . . becomes the first DDC Editor-in-Chief from outside the United States.
Mr. Panzer joined OCLC in May 2007 as Global Product Manager of Taxonomy Services, and was appointed Assistant Editor of the DDC in March 2009. From 2002 to 2005, he headed the technical team that translated Dewey into German. He was the first member of a Dewey translation team to be appointed Assistant Editor.
“Michael Panzer is well known and widely respected in the worldwide Dewey and Semantic Web communities,” said Jay Jordan, President and CEO, OCLC. “We look forward to his making the DDC ever more useful, to paraphrase Melvil Dewey, in new and imaginative ways.”
Mr. Panzer served on the W3C Library Linked Data Incubator Group, and is currently a member of the W3C Provenance Working Group.
Prior to joining OCLC, Mr. Panzer worked at Cologne University of Applied Sciences, where he was team leader of CrissCross, a research project funded by the German Research Foundation focused on mapping SWD, DDC, RAMEAU, and LCSH. He has an MA from Heinrich Heine University (Düsseldorf) in German Literature with a minor in Information Science. He also attended the University of California, Davis, on a four-month research scholarship.
Michael’s personal interests include:
As for that interest in 686.22, the colophon of DDC 23 indicates that “composition [of the edition] was done . . . under the supervision of Michael Panzer.” Indeed, Michael’s various technical skills have spawned a mythical corporate body we refer to in-house as PCI—Panzer Cottage Industries.
Those of us who have had the chance to work with Michael are delighted with the appointment and wish him well. (And those of you at the ALA Dewey Breakfast will have the chance to hear from and speak to Michael tomorrow morning.)
Congratulations, Michael! It has been an honour to work with you on the German DDC translation and in the various working groups where our ways have crossed. Keep up the good work!
/Lars
Posted by: Lars | 25 January 2013 at 09:58 AM
Congratulations!! I look forward to continuing our work together. Kind regards, Elise
Posted by: Elise Conradi | 29 January 2013 at 03:28 AM
Congratulations, Michael! I had missed this news. Perhaps it's time I set my alarm early for those Dewey breakfasts again.
Posted by: Chew Chiat Naun | 29 January 2013 at 04:13 PM