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Obama's great-uncle, innovative librarian

Charles Payne's work led to one of the first library automated systems

Charles Payne, President Barack Obama's great-uncle, worked for more than 30 years at the University of Chicago Library, where he brought an engineer's methodical approach to analyzing library systems and helping to develop library automation.

"Charles was a pioneer," said Alice Schreyer, interim library director for the university. "What he did was start the library automation process."

Mr. Payne, 89, died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma Friday, Aug. 1, in Warren Barr Gold Coast in Chicago, according to his wife, Melanie. He lived in Hyde Park for many years while working for the university.

In a statement released by a White House official, Obama said that "Uncle Charlie was a wonderful man who will be greatly missed by his friends and family."

The statement went on to say that "the president is happy that he's been able to share the events of these recent years with his great-uncle and was grateful to have spoken with him recently before he passed. The president also spoke to his family after his passing to express his condolences."

Mr. Payne was born in Peru, Kan. The family moved to Augusta, near Wichita, and he grew up there with siblings that included his late sister, Madelyn. She grew up to be Madelyn Dunham, Obama's maternal grandmother.

His wife said he was just out of high school when he joined the Army's 89th Infantry Division fighting in Germany. He was still a young private in April 1945 when he participated in the liberation of Ohrdruf, a forced-labor camp that was a satellite of the Buchenwald concentration camp.

"I remember seeing a lot of really emaciated people in rags at the point of starvation. People were clutching tin cups for food," he told the Tribune in 2009. "I saw sheds where dead bodies had been stacked up."

Mr. Payne was on hand during a June 2009 visit to France by Obama, who recognized his great-uncle while paying tribute to servicemen who gave their lives in the D-Day invasion 65 years earlier.

After the war, Mr. Payne, returned to Kansas and enrolled at Kansas State University in Manhattan. After earning a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering, he worked for about 10 years as a field engineer in oil fields and chemical plants in West Texas and Oklahoma.

Another sister was studying at the University of Chicago and told him she thought library science might be a good fit for him. "It turned out to be," said his wife.

He enrolled in a master's program at the U. of C.'s Graduate Library School. Although he never finished the degree, by 1961 he was working as a reference librarian and research associate at what was then the Industrial Relations Center.

In 1964 he joined the library staff as the first systems librarian. In a note she e-mailed to library staff, Schreyer, who is also associate university librarian for area studies and special collections, said Mr. Payne analyzed library systems and managed several development projects that led to the implementation of the Library Data Management System. Known as LDMS, it was one of the first library automated systems.

"Just the immense power of keyword and online searching grew out of this concept of bibliographic information in machine-readable form," Schreyer said.

While Mr. Payne didn't work alone, he was a leader, Schreyer said.

"He worked with a lot of colleagues, but he was behind the development of the (University of Chicago) Library's first automated system that was very novel for its day," she said.

Mr. Payne was the library's assistant director for systems from 1975 to 1992. After stepping down, he worked part time on projects for the library until his retirement in 1995.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Payne is survived by a son, Richard, and a brother, Jon.

There were no services.

Tribune reporter Katherine Skiba contributed.

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