Electronic Information and Communication

I have, for more than 20 years, spent quite some time on issues of electronic information and communication. This started while I was the President of the German Mathematical Society (DMV) and when I directed a nationwide program to supply Internet access to the desktop of mathematicians and to provide links to electronic information about mathematics such as the database MATH of the Zentralblatt für Mathematik

The IuK Initiative of German Scientific Societies grew out of this project (in collaboration with physicists, chemists, and computer scientists in Germany). This IuK Initiative was founded in 1994 and I became its first speaker.
I have been involved in electronic information and communication ever since in several functions. For instance, I have been IuK-Beauftragter of the DMV, and I had various functions in the special interest group for information and communication of the DMV.

I have been a member of the Committee on Electronic Information and Communication (CEIC) of the International Mathematical Union (IMU) from 1998 to 2006 which has the purpose to formulate general policies of the IMU concerning information and communication and to organize cooperative projects. I would like to draw the attention, in particular, to CEIC's initial "Recommendations on Information and Communication" which were approved by the Executive Committee and the General Assembly of the International Mathematical Union in 2002, and CEIC's further recommendations on Digital Mathematical Library.

I headed the Telota Initiative of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (BBAW) from 2002 to 2011 (Telota is an acronym for "The electronic life of the academy"), and currently I am active in the "Interdisziplinäre Arbeitsgruppe" of BBAW "Future of Scientific Communication".