Ok, so first is what's being worked on for the future:
Bug 5989 - making the GAL browsable - browse &
Bug 13012 - groupings for GAL contacts for 'Select Addresses' dialog and or GAL went into
Bug 14531 - GAL via contacts folders with sorting, browsing and real sync
Current things you could do:
You could search for everyone in the gal by typing something they all contain in their names like a period, then save/drag the results to a personal address book entitled GAL Static or something (& even share that address book if you're not a huge organization etc) of coure it might get out of date...which is why the gal is dynamic.

Plus the idea is to not make it
too easy for people to query & download a 50k user address list and have it fall into the wrong hands (
RFE 19157).
Anticipating most people's usual next question; you might also be interested in these GAL RFE's -
Let Staff Update:
Bug 19429 - more detailed access rights to update the GAL
Let Users Update:
Bug 5953 - allow user to edit their own LDAP/GAL attributes
In the meantime for that, you could however use zmprov commands in a lite portal/limited console where the users could go to update their contact info.
Be sure to show support for
Bug 14531 - GAL via contacts folders with sorting, browsing and real sync at the least - though it is targeted for 5.5, in a small way voting helps to let us know what we should focus priorities on when other RFE's crop up
