‘Round the Table: 2023 GODORT Award Winners

James Bennett Childs Award

The recipient of the 2023 James Bennett Child Award is Stephen M. Hayes, retired Entrepreneurial Spirit Endowed Business Librarian and Director, Thomas Mahaffey, Jr. Business Library at the University of Notre Dame. The Childs Award is a tribute to an individual who has made a lifetime and significant contribution to the field of documents librarianship and is based on stature, service, and publications.

During his tenure of over four decades at the University of Notre Dame, Steve, who transitioned from a Government Documents/Reference Librarian to Business Services Librarian, always maintained a strong commitment to the promotion and use of open-access government information. He served on and chaired numerous GODORT committees, including Chair, 1987-1988. Steve’s work with ALA’s Committee on Legislation Subcommittee on Government Information and the ALA Ad Hoc Task Force on Restrictions on Access to Government Information was particularly noteworthy because his service occurred during a period when access to government information was threatened by political and economic restrictions with the government. Steve also chaired the GODORT Reorganization Committee. Steve’s dedication and advocacy of government information is also evidenced by having served two terms, 1994-1996 and 2010-2013, on the Depository Library Council to the Public Printer. One of Steve’s nominators said, “Steve always made his point in such a manner that you knew where he stood yet always appreciate his passionate arguments without anger or bitterness.” Another nominator remarked, “In short, the modernization of GODORT and the Depository Program owes much to Steve Hayes.”

ProQuest/GODORT/ALA “Documents to the People Award

Stephani (Nia) Rodgers, Public Affairs Research Librarian at Virginia Commonwealth University, is the 2023 recipient of the ProQuest/GODORT/ALA “Documents to the People” Award, which honors an individual, library, institution, or other non-commercial groups that have most effectively encouraged the use of government documents in support of library service. Nia’s nomination letters focused on her podcast entitled Civil Discourse and her Constitution Day series. Her Civil Discourse podcast was one of the first of its kind on the Virginia Commonwealth University campus and an early entry in the library podcast lineup. The podcast has more than 150 episodes which have been downloaded over 13,300 times, covering a multitude of topics-federal budgets, national parks, the post office, elections, COVID-19 vaccinations, and even NORAD’s Santa tracker. The content is presented as a conversation in accessible language, and as one listener commented, it’s “informative, interesting, and just fun to listen to.” Nia has coordinated a thriving Constitution Day series that has built an audience that averages 60 attendees a year, with the same or more recorded sessions. Partnering with local experts, Nia facilitates engaging discussions on the Constitution. Nia’s enthusiasm for government information has been described by more than one nominator as “contagious.” One nominator remarked, “People come away from interactions with Nia and the programming she creates with a deep appreciation for library services and government information, and for her.”

NewsBank/Readex/GODORT/ALA Catharine J. Reynolds Research Grant

The recipient of the 2023 NewsBank/Readex/GODORT/ ALA Catharine J. Reynolds Award is Marie Concannon, Head of Government Information & Data Archives at the University of Missouri, Columbia, for her website, Prices and Wages by Decade. This award provides funding for research in the field of documents librarianship or in a related area that would benefit the individual’s performance as a documents librarian or make a contribution to the field. Prices and Wages by Decade is a LibGuide hosted by the University of Missouri Library. The guide provides over 19,000 links leading to retail prices and wages found mostly in government publications that may not be easily discoverable without the guide. As one nominator commented, “The transformative nature of this project is in its use of freely-available, full-text digitized government publications.” In 2021, Prices and Wages by Decade received more than 850,000 page views from visitors in 185 countries. Concannon plans to use the stipend to employ a student assistant to add more links and streamline the site for enhanced usability. She would also like to add more earnings data by race and more nineteenth-century wage data for states having large minority populations.

Bernadine Abbott Hoduski Founders Award

The Bernadine Abbott Hoduski Founders Award recognizes documents librarians who may not be known at the national level but who have made significant contributions to the field of state, international, local, or federal documents. This award recognizes those whose contributions have benefited not only the individual’s institution but also the profession. This year the Awards Committee selected three recipients.

Mary Sine Clark is being recognized for her contribution to state documents, although her accomplishments over the past three decades cover a range of activities that have impacted access to government information and the Federal Depository Library Program. Mary successfully shifted the Virginia Depository Program from a print-based to an all-electronic, print-on-demand distribution system that has had a tremendous and positive impact on the Virginia documents community. She served as a technical advisor to the Virginia General Assembly Joint Subcommittee Studying the Public Records Act from 2004-2006, which led to an updated definition of a “publication” in the Code of Virginia to include digital materials, which ultimately expanded the State Publications Depository Program. The Library of Virginia now stores all Virginia government publications in the VLa DigiTool repository for State Publications. Under Mary’s guidance, the Library of Virginia catalogs all state publications (print and digital) and provides this cataloging to the Virginia State Depository Libraries-saving the libraries money and providing access to this valuable information.

Ben Amata, Librarian, California State University Sacramento, is being recognized for his contribution to federal documents. Ben has worked with state and federal documents since 1980. Ben has long been a champion of freedom of information, as demonstrated by his efforts to identify and publicize federal government documents related to current events. His frequent posts to Govdoc-l to inform colleagues about newly released public documents are a great service to the profession. His diligence in identifying unreported government publications (formerly known as “fugitive documents”) and asking GPO to include themes in the Catalog of Government Publications (CGP) has been extremely valuable. In addition to his beneficial and ongoing work of Govdoc-L, Ben has published more than a dozen articles on federal and international government information over the years.

James Church, Librarian for Economic, Global Studies, Political Economy, and International Government Information at the University of California, Berkeley, is being recognized for his contributions to international documents. He has demonstrated his leadership and expertise in teaching, learning, researching, writing, and advocacy work with international government organizations (IGO’s) and non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) for over twenty years. One nominator commented, “His articles and response posts to questions on GOVDOC-L and INTLDOC-L shed a light onto the problems around access to IGO information as well as provide useful instruction on how to approach answering a question. They are edifying in such a way that any new or even an “accidental government information librarian” could use his writings as a primer for international documents librarianship.”

Margaret T. Lane/Virginia F. Saunders Memorial Research Award

The 2023 Margaret T. Lane/Virginia F. Saunders Memorial Research Award is awarded to the editors of the article, The Government Information Landscape and Libraries (https://repository.ifla.org/handle/123456789/842) published via the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) Repository. The authors are Dr. Kay Cassell, James Church, Kathryn Tallman, Nerisa Kamar, Dr. Clive Tsuma, Susan Paterson, Dr. Mohammad Zuheir Bakleh, Lize Denner, Anna Mastora, Maria Koloniari, Maria Monopoli, Jungwon Yang, Anastasia A. Drozdova, Hannah Chandler, Jennie Grimshaw, Fiona Laing, Kian Flynn, Cass Hartnett, Maya Swanes and Robert Lopresti. This award is given annually to an author(s) of outstanding published research in which government information forms a substantial part of the documented research. The report illustrates the challenges and complexities posed by government publishing systems and the need to maintain professional government information expertise in libraries to help users discover and interpret it. Megan Price, Professional Support Officer of IFLA, summarizes: “In addition to its value to professionals working within the field, the publication also provides valuable support for advocacy and engagement in wider open government discussions. It has already received a warm reception from UNESCO, and has formed the basis for engagement at the African Union’s African Regional Peer Review Mechanism. Through this, we are able not only to show the knowledge and insight of libraries in questions of open government but also advocate for our institutions to be given a stronger role in delivering it and the resources to match.”—Melanie Sims, Head of Access Services & Government Information, LSU Law Library, notmes@lsu.edu

Larry Romans Mentorship Award

The American Library Association (ALA) Rainbow and Government Documents Round Tables (RRT and GODORT) are proud to announce Debbie Rabina as the 2023 recipient of the Larry Romans Mentorship Award.

The Award’s namesake, Larry Romans, mentored numerous librarians at Vanderbilt University, where he worked for over 30 years. For decades, he was also a tremendous leader and mentor in the Tennessee Library Association, providing a positive influence on the association and the careers of innumerable librarians, many of whom have gone on to be leaders in ALA. Of particular note, during his 23 years of service to ALA Council, Larry mentored countless new and veteran councilors.

Rabina’s commitment to fostering a two-way relationship of teaching and learning with her students at the Pratt Institute School of Information and Library Science has sparked new ideas and created lasting impressions in the field of government information access, storage, and retrieval. Her curiosity and dedication is reflected in the way her colleagues speak about her. Her students are no different, citing her engagement with them and on their behalf as key models for how they should interact and move forward on their path to librarianship.

The award consists of a citation and $1,000. The award will be presented at the GODORT Awards Program at the ALA Annual Conference. In addition, recognition of the recipient will also take place at the beginning of the Stonewall Book Awards Program held at the ALA Annual Conference.

To learn more about the Larry Romans Mentorship Award, please visit http://www.ala.org/glbtrt/award/larry-romans-mentorship-award.

The Rainbow Round Table of the American Library Association is the oldest professional association for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, pansexual, genderqueer, queer, intersex, agender, asexual, and ally (LGBTQIA+) people in the United States. It is committed to serving the information needs of the LGBTQIA+ professional library community and information and access needs of individuals at large. It is home to Rainbow Book Month, a nationwide celebration every June and the Stonewall Book Award, the oldest award honoring LGBTQIA+ books. RRT is committed to encouraging and supporting the free and necessary access to all information, as reflected by the missions of the American Library Association and democratic institutions.

The Government Documents Round Table provides a forum for the discussion of problems and concerns and for the exchange of ideas by librarians working with government documents. It provides a nexus for initiating and supporting programs to increase the availability, use and bibliographic control of documents and increases communication between documents librarians and the larger community of information professionals, and contributes to the education and training of documents librarians.

David W. Rozkuszka Scholarship

The GODORT Committee is pleased to announce the selected recipient of the 2023 David W. Rozkuszka Scholarship as Amy Enberg. The selection committee was impressed with Amy’s goals for future work with government documents as well as her dedication to her academic pursuits. Enberg cites her desire to work in government documents as, “driven by a passion for research and a desire to promote the accessibility of legal and federal information for students, academics, and community patrons.”

The David W. Rozkuszka Scholarship is awarded to a prospective student, or a student who is pursuing their masters of library science from an ALA accredited school. The Scholarship provides $3,000 to the recipient to help cover financial costs. The award is in honor of its namesake, David W. Rozkuszka, former documents librarian at Stanford University and an influential member of GODORT.

To learn more about the David W. Rozkuszka Scholarship, please visit: https://www.ala.org/educationcareers/godort-david-w-rozkuszka-scholarship.

Congratulations to Amy Enberg on her award!