Jay Jordan became the fourth president in OCLC's 45-year history in May 1998, and has overseen a period of remarkable growth for OCLC. Since 1998, the number of libraries participating in the OCLC cooperative has grown from 30,000 to more than 72,000. The number of participating institutions outside the U.S. has increased from 3,200 in 64 countries to 16, 215 in 170 countries. Under Jay's leadership, OCLC built a new technological platform, introduced new Web-scale cloud services, created a library advocacy program, and introduced new initiatives to make library holdings and libraries more visible on the open Web.

Jay came to OCLC in May 1998 after a 24-year career with Information Handling Services, an international publisher of databases, where he held a series of key positions in top management, including President of IHS Engineering. Prior to joining IHS, Jay held positions with the 3M Corporation in Europe and the United States.

Jay is active in professional organizations, including the American Library Association and the Special Libraries Association. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Library Administration, serves on the School of Information and Library Science (SILS) Board of Visitors for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and is a board member of the Governing Board for Publishing of the American Chemical Society.

Jay graduated from Colgate University in 1965 with a B.A. in English literature and served as a U.S. Army officer in Germany. He has spent more than seven years living and working outside the United States.

Jay speaks on topics related to trends in the information industry and library cooperation as well as the evolution of library automation.