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The 2003 recipient of the James Bennett Childs Award is Carolyn Kohler, currently the Head of the Government Documents Department at the University of Iowa Libraries. The Childs Award is a tribute to an individual who has made a lifetime and significant contribution to the field of government documents librarianship.

As stated in her nomination letter, "Kohler, Carolyn - Collected Good Works would be the first subject heading assigned if librarians could catalog her distinguished career." Carolyn's contributions to government documents librarianship span over 30 years. She joined the University of Iowa staff in 1968 as state, foreign, and international documents librarian. In just three years she was promoted to department head and has served in that capacity and as regional depository librarian ever since.

On the state-wide level, Carolyn was instrumental in establishing the Iowa Library Association's Government Documents Roundtable (ILA/GODORT) section and served as its first Chair in 1973-74. She chaired the Committee to Draft an Iowa State Depository Law from 1973-78 and played a pivotal role in the final passage of that law in 1978. In addition, she was a member of the Iowa State Library Depository Documents Advisory Council from 1976-1986 and served on a State Library Task Force to Study the Future of the State Documents Depository Program in 1997-98. She chaired the committee on the Iowa State Plan (for the Federal Depository Library Program) in 1983-84, and is currently working with the committee charge with updating the plan.

Carolyn takes her regional librarian duties very seriously. She is a regular attendee at the Federal Depository Library Conferences and had made several presentations at these meetings. In her fall 2001 presentation, "Regional Superseded List Revision," Carolyn highlighted her creation of databases which regional libraries can use to evaluate GPO superseded lists and regional retention policies. Carolyn communicates electronically with Iowa's selective depositories via Govdoc-Iowa, a listserv set up several years ago at Carolyn's behest and hosted by the University of Iowa. Information on the listserv and other "Resources of Use to Federal Depository Libraries in Iowa" are on the Government Publications Department (GPD) web page at .. Carolyn is also a frequent presenter at ILA/GODORT workshops and ILA fall conference sessions. Her strong stance on maintaining access for non-university patrons comes through loud and clear in all discussions concerning "non-primary clientele."

Carolyn has made the Government Publications Department a strong center of service within the University of Iowa Libraries. This has most assuredly helped countless faculty, staff, students, but that high level of service is consciously extended to statewide constituents as well. Carolyn was instrumental in making sure the documents department was included as a participant in the UI's "Virtual Reference" pilot, which will begin in January 2003. Carolyn helped team-teach the SLIS documents class in 1987, has given numerous presentations on documents librarianship to library classes, and she has always welcomed library practicum students into the documents department for 40- to 80-hour practicum experiences. These practicum students have been assigned meaningful projects that both help out the department and also enable the students to envision what documents librarianship could mean to them. It is felt that the positive experience in Carolyn's department taught these students that documents work could be interesting, nay, even cool and thus Carolyn has brought new faces into the documents realm, another kind of "significant contribution to the field of documents librarianship."

Carolyn's national involvement also encompasses many fields of documents librarianship. Carolyn was one of 11 American librarians invited to attend a 3-day training workshop for European Union depository librarians, held in Brussels in June 1997. A charter member of /GODORT, Carolyn was elected to positions of Secretary, International Documents Task Force Coordinator (twice), and Federal Documents Task Force Coordinator. She has served on numerous GODORT committees in the past, is currently serving on the Bylaws and Organization Committee, and is the National Action Alert Network contact for Iowa. Carolyn lobbied successfully to be the host of GODORT's Government Information Technology Committee (GITCO) CD-ROM Documentation Project. Her foresight in determining the usefulness of such specialized documents databases, including early work in creating departmental Notebook files (an ancient DOS-based program), provided the foundation for this project and numerous others.

Carolyn's work style is based on working away quietly; getting routine departmental duties done in an organized and accurate manner; plus putting in long hours on complex projects, many of which she seems to volunteer for. When the results are in, once again we'll all benefit greatly from the quiet, hard work of a supremely dedicated documents librarian, Carolyn Kohler. What a job she has done!