2024 GODORT Award Winners

James Bennett Childs Award

The recipient of the 2024 James Bennett Childs award is Marie Concannon, Head of Government Information and Data Archives at the University of Missouri, Columbia. 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.

The Awards Committee noted that the support letters for Marie’s nomination focused on her dedication to the profession and lifetime of service. Her role in government documents practice has been exemplary. Her work with the website Prices and Wages by Decade has been beneficial not only to the government information community, but to the wider community as well. The guide provides more than 19,000 links leading to retail prices and wages found mostly in government publications that may not be easily discoverable without the guide.

Marie has served GODORT in many capacities and was a member of the Depository Library Council from 2012 through 2015. The Awards Committee commends Marie on her career of dedication to the promotion and accessibility of government information.

Bernadine Abbott Hoduski Founders Award

GODORT is awarding both state and federal recipients of the 2024 Bernadine Abbott Hoduski Founders Award, which recognizes documents librarians who might not be known at the national level but have made significant contributions to the field of state, international, local, or federal documents.

Celina McDonald, government documents librarian at the University of Maryland, is the federal recipient of the 2024 Bernadine Abbott Hoduski Founders Award. She served on the Depository Library Council from 2017 through 2020 and currently serves on the HathiTrust U.S. Federal Documents Advisory Committee. In her role as regional depository librarian, Celina holds regular office hours for government information librarians in Maryland, Delaware, and the D.C. area.

At the national level, Celina testified before the U.S. Committee on House Administration at the “Transforming GPO for the 21st Century and Beyond: Part 3—Federal Depository Library Program Congressional Hearings” in 2017. She served as a member of the ALA Committee on Legislation Subcommittee on Government Information from 2012 to 2017 and 2018 to 2022, including co-chairing the committee in 2015–2016 and chairing in 2016–2017. She has also offered several FDLP Academy training webinars.

Patricia Kenly is the state recipient of the Bernadine Abbott Hoduski Founders Award for 2024. Patricia is the Business Reference Librarian and Government Documents Coordinator at the Georgia Tech Library. A mainstay at Georgia state library conferences, including the annual Georgia Libraries Conference and the Georgia Depository Libraries meeting, she presents regularly on government information issues and resources, especially science topics and technical reports. Equally valuable are her frequent informative contributions to the U.S. Depositories in Georgia listserv and her well-researched LibGuides on government information topics.

Patricia’s career service includes active membership in GODORT, committee work, and officer positions in several professional library organizations. She has chaired the Georgia Government Information Interest Group (GIIG) and served on the Georgia State Depository Plan Committee. For many years she has actively participated on the Government Information Committee of the ACRL Science and Technology Section.

ProQuest/GODORT/ALA “Documents to the People” Award

The 2024 ProQuest/GODORT/ALA “Documents to the People” Award goes to Kennesaw State University Libraries and the Bentley Rare Book Museum for their collaboration on the Constitution Week event, “Life in the Times of the Constitution.” This event presented a unique opportunity for these organizations to showcase the depository collection to the campus community by facilitating hands-on exploration of newspapers and books from the eighteenth century, The event, complemented by a curated display of government publications related to the Constitution and that era, succeeded in bringing government publications to life, creating a memorable and enriching experience for all participants. The event was hosted by Laurie Aycock, Kristina Clement, Elizabeth Friedly, and JoyEllen Williams.

The ProQuest/GODORT/ALA “Documents to the People” Award is a tribute to an individual, library, institution, or other non-commercial group that has most effectively encouraged the use of government documents in support of library service. This unique program for Constitution Week bridged the gap between the past and the present, bringing to life the documents that have shaped the nation, for more than 50 attendees. The cash stipend for this award will allow the library and museum to expand the event’s scale, increasing students’ engagement with primary source documents and broadening its impact even beyond the campus.

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

The recipient of the 2024 News Bank/Readex/GODORT/ALA Catharine J. Reynolds Research Grant is Aimée Quinn, Librarian at Northern Arizona University, Yuma, for the project “The Demise of Government Information in the Time of the 45th President.” 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.

This article, co-authored by Bernadine Abbott Hoduski, Fred Stoss, and Tom Adamich, examines the realities of threats to government information policy and process as a result of the 45th presidency. The authors in particular examine changes in agency processes in managing the release of government information through a case study analysis of the closure of EPA libraries. With the grant funds Aimée will visit larger FDLP libraries with collections that her library does not have and that are unavailable online in order to expand the in-depth historical budget analysis of the EPA and EPA libraries during this era. This is critically impactful research for the history of Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) and U.S. government libraries, for government information librarians as well as for public policy researchers, historians, and the general public. Receiving the Reynolds Award will allow Aimée to complete this research and publish the work.

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

The book What Can U.S. Government Information Do for Me?, edited by Tom Diamond and Dominique Hallett (pictured), is the recipient of the Margaret T. Lane / Virginia F. Saunders Memorial Research Award. This award is given annually to an author or shared among collaborative authors of outstanding published research (e.g., books, articles, occasional papers) in which government information, either published or archival in nature, forms a substantial part of the documented research. Published by McFarland in 2023, What Can U.S. Government Information Do for Me? embodies the spirit of the award by advancing understanding of government information resources and their impact on the library and information science field. It goes beyond the traditional understanding of government documents and showcases the diverse range of resources available, from data sets to research reports, and from legal materials to statistical publications.

This book helps empower librarians to better assist patrons in their information-seeking endeavors and enriches the learning experiences of students by introducing them to a wealth of government information resources that are often underutilized. The book also encourages the ongoing dialogue within the library and information science community about the importance of government information.