About Me

The Professional

Katherine Witzig (she/they) is devoted to libraries as an institution that honors histories and supports communities and their goals as they grow and change. 

As a member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma and the 2SLGBTQ+ and disability communities, she seeks to use her personal experience and connections to reveal the wisdom of and amplify the voices within underserved populations. She graduated from the University of Central Oklahoma (BA English, 2015), Oklahoma City University (BA Spanish, 2022), and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (MLIS, 2024). 

Locally, she serves as the Oklahoma Library Association (OLA)’s Chair for the Committee of Tribal Libraries, Archives, and Museums and, in a corollary capacity, as a Member-At-Large for the Oklahoma Archivists Association (OAA). She is a member of the Oklahoma Council for Indian Education, and she helped found a local four-state chapter of REFORMA (The National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking) called Corazón de la Nación. 

Nationally, she serves as a co-chair of the PCC Task Group for Metadata Related to Indigenous Peoples of the Americas. As a member of the American Library Association (ALA), she contributes to various groups within the organization, like the Sustainability Roundtable and the Social Responsibilities Roundtable. She looks forward to increasing her engagement in Indigenous-centered organizations like the American Indian Library Association and the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums and supporting these institutions with her involvement.

Within the last year, Katherine was a recipient of the 2023 Lillian Born Norberg and Mary Lou Atkinson Staff Support Scholarship from Friends of Libraries in Oklahoma (FOLIO), and from the American Library Association, she received the New Voices in Sustainability Award from the Sustainability Roundtable and a grant from the Social Responsibilities Roundtable. Katherine is a 2023-2024 Native Forward Graduate Program Scholar and a 2024 NISO+ Scholarship awardee from the National Information Standards Organization (NISO).

To reinforce the support system for vibrant Indigenous communities in Oklahoma, Katherine wants to facilitate relationships between libraries, tribal institutions, and those serving Indigenous community members of all ages.