ALA Midwinter GODORT Committee Highlights

Cataloging Committee Summary

Ex-officio member Jim Noel of Marcive gave a report that the first batch of Serial Set cataloging records from GPO came into Marcive production. For most libraries these will be invisible as they have no GPO item numbers involved with selection, but libraries that want them can contact Jim Noel to have that set up. There are 9,000 records this month, which will be an ongoing project in the long term. Over the course of 10 years, they could be expecting 350,000 records.There are still library openings in the CRDP (Cataloging Record Distribution Program).

Special Guest from the Library of Congress, Director for Acquisitions and Bibliographic Access Beacher Wiggins, attended the committee’s meeting to discuss some insights, updates, and hold Q&A about the Library of Congress’ Policy and Standards Division annual meeting that the Library of Congress will replace aliens and illegal aliens subject headings with new subject headings “Noncitizens” and “Illegal immigration: https://classweb.org/approved-subjects/2111b.html.

Chair Andie Craley is working to organize a future “Ask a Cataloger” Friday Chat with committee volunteers with possible breakout rooms during chat on workflows related to OCLC in public libraries, law items, CRDP, and state and local documents. Chair Andie Craley is also working on follow-up with a contact to do a LibGuide Feedback form linked to all three of the Cataloging Toolboxes under “Help/Contacts.”—Andie Craley, Chair, Cataloging Committee

Program Committee Highlights

The GODORT Program Committee heard back from ALA that our juried program proposal, “Social Justice & The Kerner Report: The Consequences of Inaction,” for the upcoming ALA Annual Conference in Washington, DC, was accepted.

In this panel discussion, the audience will hear from historians, academics, and activists reflecting on the significance and impact this government document has had over the past 50 years and what we can still learn from its content today. The committee is now in the process of reaching out to a shortlist of potential panelists for the program.—Kian Flynn, Chair, Program Committee

Legislation Committee

The Legislation Committee met with Gavin Baker from ALA’s Public Policy and Advocacy (PPA) office; Joe Thompson, current chair of the ALA Committee on Legislation (COL); and Lisa Jochelson, current chair of the COL Government Information Subcommittee (COL-GIS). The Committee held a productive conversation about ALA’s legislative agenda, and discussed ways for GODORT to collaborate with PPA and COL-GIS. In the coming months, the Committee will continue its work implementing GODORT’s FDLP Advocacy Plan.—Shari Laster, Chair, Legislation Committee