Law Library of Congress Interview With Jolande Goldberg, Law Classification Specialist

In Custodia Legis, the blog of the Law Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., has posted an interview this week with Jolande Goldberg, Law Classification Specialist:

"What is your professional history?(...)
In 1967, I began my career of 50 years at Library of Congress as a cataloger (Shared Cataloging Division/Dutch-Scandinavian Section) with special assignments for law and Latin language materials.  My first American publication, was an edition with commentary on Baldo degli Ubaldi (1137-1400), Consilium in casu privilegiorum Recanatensium, one of the stellar manuscripts in the Law Library.  My article caught the attention of Werner Ellinger, the first law classification specialist and pioneer of the schedule Class KF Law of the US (1967). He was instrumental for my swift change to the Subject Cataloging Division, followed by a transfer to the “Class K Project,” as it was known then. From 1972 on, I developed the major part of the Library of Congress schedules for Class K-KZ (Law), as a knowledge organization system relating to all regions of the world, including ancient and religious systems of law, indigenous law, and the Law of nations. Since 1992, I have been the Library’s Senior Law Classification Specialist."

"How would you describe your job to other people?
This is not easily done without describing the objective of the job.  As the Law classification specialist, my responsibilities are the planning, development, expansion and of the LC Classification for Law (Class K) for all countries and legal systems of the world, past and present.  Class K encompasses civil & common law, Ancient, Roman & Religious law- the latter including Canon, Jewish & Islamic law – and Comparative and International law (...)"

"What is the most interesting fact you ever learned about the Law Library?
How extensive in subject, how numerous in tongues  – country by country,  and how rare the collections really are. You ask for Medieval and Canon law? You get it. You ask for Islamic and Jewish law? You get it. You ask for everything “international law”: the laws of war and peace; international commons, such as the high seas and Antarctica; the International Criminal Court and the Hague/Geneva humanitarian law, and the organizations safeguarding it? You get it."

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.