Interview With Law Library of Congress Head Cataloguer Gabe Horchler

In Custodia Legis, the blog of the Law Library of Congress in Washington, has been running an interview series featuring members of the library staff. The series started in late October 2010.

The most recent interview is with Gabe Horchler, section head of the Law Section of Library Services’ Acquisitions & Bibliographic Access Directorate, U.S. Programs, Law & Literature Division:

"How would you describe your job to other people?
When I try to describe my job to non-librarians, their eyes usually glaze over, but I find my work to be very rewarding.  Responsible for cataloging the materials that are assigned to the Law Library, the Law Section processed nearly 20,000 titles in 82 languages in Fiscal Year 2014. This workload covers a wide span of time and place. It runs the gamut from the most recent, cutting edge U.S. imprints which we catalog through the Cataloging in Publication Program before they are even published, to materials from the Library’s overseas offices, and to books from as early as the 16^th century that are held by the Law Library but are not under bibliographic control. Dealing with such a large and varied workload requires a diverse, highly skilled, and productive staff, and when the members of the Law Section are unable to handle a particular language or format, they can turn for help to other specialists throughout the Library. There is probably no other institution in the world that has such a range of expertise."

The Law Library of Congress is the world’s largest law library, with a collection of over 2.65 million volumes from all ages of history and virtually every jurisdiction in the world.