It is with deep sadness that we relate the passing of friend and colleague Bruce Rosenblum. Well-known throughout the information community, he was a quiet but influential leader, and his impact will be felt for years to come in the unseen infrastructure supporting the millions of people who write, edit, and read scholarly articles.
Bruce was the long-time CEO of Inera, the developer of Edifix as well as eXtyles, which provides XML-based workflow tools for scholarly and professional publishers. After Atypon acquired Inera in 2019, he contributed his considerable knowledge and experience at Atypon, and then Wiley, in his position as VP of Content and Workflow Solutions. “Bruce was a great friend, mentor, and colleague to many people over the years. This is a significant loss that we feel deeply at Wiley and across the industry” shared Jay Flynn, Executive Vice President and General Manager at Wiley.
Bruce played a critical role within the National Information Standards Organization (NISO). He was a member of the NISO Board of Directors for several years, serving a term as Treasurer, and was a driving force in the development of the Journal Article Tag Suite (JATS) and Standard Tag Suite (STS) standards. His invaluable contributions were formally recognized when he was named a NISO Fellow in 2020. “For me personally,” added Todd Carpenter, NISO Executive Director, “Bruce was also a trusted mentor and a dear friend. He will certainly be missed.”
In 2017, Bruce was diagnosed with Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He launched an important discussion about disability awareness on the Scholarly Kitchen blog when he first publicly disclosed his illness. He also became deeply involved in advocacy for ALS patient support and research. Among many other activities, he spearheaded a Wiley fundraiser around the ALS ice bucket challenge at SKO 2022 to benefit ALS research at the Healey & AMG Center for ALS at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Bruce will be long remembered not only for his service to the information community, but also for his compassion. He recently reminded his Wiley colleagues of the original Inera mission statement, which is something we can all take to heart: Take care of yourselves, take care of each other, and take care of the customer.
Thank you to our colleagues at Wiley for contributing to this piece.