Dr. W. Val Metanomski
In Memoriam
1923 - 2008

The POLY family mourns the passing of long time POLY friend and volunteer, Dr. Wladyslaw "Val" Metanomski. Val passed away on Thursday, December 11, 2008. He was born October 3, 1923 in Vienna, Austria to the late Justyn and Amelia (Bloch) Metanomski. He received his B.Sc (Eng.) degree in chemical engineering from the University of London, England, in 1952, and M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Toronto, Canada, in chemical engineering (1960) and polymer chemistry (1964), respectively. He served as the Senior Scientific Information Analyst in Editorial Operations of the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) from 1964 to 2008. He was involved in abstracting, indexing, and naming, especially of polymers, in defining technical content of CAS publications and service, and in a variety of editorial projects for more than 40 years. He presented and published papers on oxidation-reduction polymers, chemical nomenclature, abstracting, indexing, and retrieval of chemical information, often with a historical perspective.

Between 1989 and 1999 he chaired the Nomenclature Committee of the ACS Division of Polymer Chemistry (POLY). In 1991, he initiated the publication of a regular column "Macromolecular Nomenclature Note" in Polymer Preprints. He contributed a chapter on "Nomenclature" to Wiley's "Polymer Handbook" (4th ed., 1999). He received the Polymer Distinguished Service Award in 1995. Val served as POLY Historian, compiling a list of POLY Milestones for the whole period of POLY's existence, which was displayed as a poster at the POLY Millennial 2000 meeting and published in the "Golden Anniversary 1951-2001 ACS Division of Polymer Chemistry, Inc., History Update". Val submitted a regular "POLY History" article for the POLY Newsletter including his last submission in the Fall 2008 edition entitled, "POLY History -- Symposia 50 and 25 Years Ago". In addition, Val served as the Copy Editor for the POLY Newsletter from 2003-2008.

Val was also active in the ACS Division of Chemical Information (CINF), was its chairman in 1987, and received their Meritorious Service Award in 1992 for service to the Division and the profession. For their 50th anniversary, he compiled a booklet on "50 years of Chemical Information in the American Chemical Society, 1943-1993".

He participated in the activities of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) as a member of their commission on Macromolecular Nomenclature (1987-1999). He served as the Secretary of their Interdivisional Committee on Nomenclature and Symbols (IDCNS). He edited the IUPAC "Compendium of Macromolecular Nomencalature" (1991) and coauthored a guide to IUPAC recommendations, "Principles of Chemical Nomenclature" (1998).

Val was a member of the St. Andrew Catholic Church, and the Polish-American Community. He was also a WWII veteran of the Polish Army and fought in the Battle of Monte Cassino in Italy. Val's wife of 44 years, Helena, passed away on January 17, 2009. They are survived by daughter and son-in-law, Marianne and Stephen Cincinat; and two grandchildren, Ray Taylor, III and Natasha Taylor. Contributions may be made in his memory to the American Cancer Society, 870 Michigan Avenue, Columbus, Ohio 43215. Visit www.schoedinger.com to send online condolences to the family.