"I worked with Jerry at Rosary in the early 1970s as we installed a photocopy machine, were a Beta site for OCLC, and tried to keep up an aging set of microform machinery. He was witty, technologically astute, and devoted to serving our students."
Jerome A. Van Lom (1949-2005)
JEROME A VAN LOM (1949-2005) was born in Green Bay, Wisconsin and attended Premontre High School (class of 1968), where he was active in chorus, ROTC, National Honor Society, and notably served as a student librarian.
He worked as a librarian at Rosary College (Dominican University) in the 1970s where --with Sr. Mary Field, Library Director and Sr. Laurette McCusker, Dean of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science-he planned library regional cooperation initiatives.
He next worked at the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT), Chicago where he served as Assistant Director of Libraries at the Galvin Library. During that time he wrote about "Fee-based reference service: a reevaluation." RQ, 25, 1986: 295–299.
Jerome Van Lom served as Director of the Todd Wehr Library at St. Norbert College from 1991-2004.
He passed away in 2005 with burial at Nicolet Memorial Gardens in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
(Personal note: I worked with Jerry at Rosary in the early 1970s as we installed a photocopy machine, were a Beta site for OCLC, and tried to keep up an aging set of microform machinery. He was witty, technologically astute, and devoted to serving our students-K.McCook)
Submitted by Kathleen de la Peña McCook
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In honor of the Sesquicentennial (150th Anniversary of ALA) in 2026, the Library History Round Table is hosting Librarians We Have Lost, Sesquicentennial Memories -1976-2026. This collage of tributes seeks to honor librarians who died between 1976-2026. The tributes are published to ALA Connect, a digital memorial on LHRT News & Notes, and ALA's institutional repository (ALAIR).
We invite tributes from anyone about any library worker who passed away between 1976-2026. To submit a tribute, please use the form at https://lhrt.news/librarians-we-have-lost-sesquicentennial-memories-1976-2026-2/
For questions or comments, please reach out to Dr. Kathleen McCook (kmccook@usf.edu) or Brett Spencer (dbs21@psu.edu).
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Brett Spencer
Reference Librarian
Thun Library, Penn State Berks
He/Him/His
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