Jerrold Orne

Dr. Jerrold Orne, 97, former University Librarian at UNC-Chapel Hill, died Sunday July 13th at the Carol Woods Retirement Community. Born in St. Maul, MN, one of five children of his Romanian immigrant parents, his early interest in libraries was fed by hours spent in the St. Paul Public Library's children's and young adult collections. He worked in the library during high school, college, and on through graduate school, receiving his MA in French and Italian in 1933. By 1934 he had saved enough money for a year's study at the Sorbonne in Paris, followed in 1936 by a PhD in Modern Languages at the University of Chicago. In his doctoral classes he met his wife-to- be, Catherine Bowen, and thy have been married for 69 years. Teaching positions were in short supply in the Library School at the University of Chicago, and Wilson convinced him to consider librarianship as a professional career. Upon graduating from the library school at the University of Minnesota in 1940, Jerry became one of the first group of Resident Fellows at the Library of Congress under then librarian Archibald MacLeish, and followed that with his first academic library director position at Knox College from 1941-43, also teaching classes in French and Italian.
He was inducted into the U.S. Navy and served until 1945. During his naval service, he was assigned to San Francisco to establish a working reference library for the first United Nations Conference. He intended to return to Knox College but instead accepted an offer to direct the library at Washington University in St. Louis. This was followed by six years as the director of the library at the Air University on Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery AL.
In 1957, he came to Chapel Hill, and served as University Librarian until 1972. Not ready to retire, Jerry returned to his earlier interest in teaching and joined the faculty of the UNC School of Library Science, retiring in 1976.
During his library career he authored some 90 articles and was author or collaborator on 15 books concerning library techniques, library buildings, and the application of new technology to library operations. He also spent four years as chairman of the USA Standards Committee Z39, concerned with standardization in the field of library work, documentation and related publishing practices. Over the years he accepted State Department assignments to survey library schools and services in Cuba, Vietnam and the eastern provinces of Canada.
Jerry received the Award of Merit from the American Society for Information Science in 1971 and the Melville Dewey Award from the American Library Association in 1972. In 1974, the American Library Association awarded him their highest honor, the Joseph W. Lippincott Award, for distinguished service in the profession of librarianship.
In retirement, Jerry spent half the year in the cottage he built on Prince Edward Island, Canada, where he loved to tend his vegetable garden, sail on the bay and pick berries!
Jerry is survived by his wife, Catherine; son, Jonathan (Susan) Orne; daughters, Mary Law and Jean (Bill) Gosling; grandchildren, Andrew (Diane) Law, William (Ina) and Jonathan Gosling, Meredith and Matthew Orne; great-granddaughters, Amanda and Emily Law.