Fall Meeting
The Judaica Library Network of Metropolitan Chicago
Thursday, November 9, 2000
10:30 A.M.
Regenstein Library, University of Chicago
1100 E. 57th St. Chicago
Fall 2000 Tishrei 5761
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From the editor's desk
I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year. Thanks to Margaret and Eva for reports on the summer meeting and the AJL convention. As most of you know, I am no longer the librarian of Hebrew Theological College. I have not ceased being a librarian, but I have made changes in my professional objectives. Over the past few months I have been studying the field of knowledge management. I discovered the field quite by accident while discussing ideas for a new career with an out-of-town visitor to our shul. I started investigating and discovered that librarians are knowledge managers and I have been a knowledge professional for over than 30 years.
I hope to write some articles to help for business people understand what knowledge is and to demonstrate the professionalism of librarians.
My web site has more on my new venture:
http://home.earthlink.net/~ddstuhlman/index.html
Please send news, information, ideas, or
articles for future newsletters to :
Daniel "Donnie" Stuhlman, editor
Contents of this issue Web site for previous issues:
http://people.delphi.com/ddstuhlman\jln-home.htm
Dear Fellow Judaica Librarians,
Happy New Year. We look forward to a year
of interesting meetings in interesting venues and hope you will be attending
many, if not all, of our programs. We try to have the meetings in different
parts of the Chicago metropolitan area, on different days, and at different
times of the day, so that with our varying schedules, we can accommodate
as many members as possible.
We meet to share ideas and news and to
work on solutions to problems and issues that arise in Judaica libraries.
Our first meeting of the year is a little different, in that we will be
introduced to the Rosenberger collection at the University of Chicago (please
see directions to and details about the meeting elsewhere in the Newsletter).
Since there will also be a business meeting, please send any agenda items
to me beforehand. We are delighted that Daniel Stuhlman is continuing to
edit this Newsletter, though he is no longer associated with a library.
He needs material for the Newsletter from us. Please seriously consider
writing for the Newsletter. The articles may be short and on any Judaica
topic of interest to librarians. Please feel free to contact me at any
time. I look forward to seeing you at the University of Chicago meeting.
Eva Eisenstein
Minutes of the Summer
Meeting
The summer meeting took place on July 19th
at the home of Judy Weintraub, Skokie, IL.
The meeting was called to order at 10 a.m.
by Eva Eisenstein, Vice-President. President Robbin Katzin was unable to
attend due to illness. Eva thanked Judy Weintraub for hosting. There was
no reading of minutes or treasurer's report, as the recording secretary
and treasurer were not able to attend.
Those present who had attended the May
meeting reported that they enjoyed a program on videos, and discussed the
newsletter and plans for the directory of members.
Since a quorum of members was present,
the election of the coming year's officers was held. The slate proposed
by the Nominating Committee was elected unanimously. Daniel Stuhlman also
agreed to continue as newsletter editor. He asked that members submit articles
and news since we cannot have a newsletter without them. Eva thanked the
Nominating Committee (Margaret Burka, Shoshanah Seidman, Judy Weintraub
and Nira Wolfe). She also thanked Robbin Katzin for serving as last year's
president.
There was discussion of the recent Association
of Jewish Libraries National Convention in Washington, D.C. Judy Weintraub,
Shoshanah Seidman, Eva Eisenstein, Nancy Sack and Margaret Burka spoke
of their impressions of the convention and passed around bibliographies
and other convention information.
It was mentioned that Shoshanah, Nancy
and Cheryl Banks are again on the National Board. A suggestion was made
that we use the local press more to publicize our meetings and the convention,
e.g. an article on the convention could be sent to the Pioneer Press. Those
who attended were asked to submit articles to our news-letter. Everyone
was encouraged to attend next year's convention in San Diego.
Daniel Stuhlman and Shoshanah Seidman also
reported on the ALA Convention, which they had attended.
Shoshanah said she would begin work on
a new membership directory for JLN after October.
Meetings and programs for the next year
were proposed: Cheryl Banks had expressed willingness to do a program.
A member whose family donated a special collection at University of Chicago
(Rosenberg) had shown interest in hosting a meeting. We will see if this
could be done Nov. 14 or 16, or 7 or 9. Shoshanah offered to check on this.
It was proposed to have a meeting Sunday Feb. 4, 2001 or around then, possibly
in Naperville; Eva will check on this. A suggested theme was: "What do
we want from our chapter?". The May meeting might be at Beth Emet in Evanston,
on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, the 8,9,10 or 15,16 or 17 - Rosalind
Shlaes will check on this.
The meeting was adjourned at 12:00 noon.
Respectfully submitted - Margaret Burka
Officers for 2000-2001
Newsletter editor Daniel Stuhlman
ddstuhlman@earthlink.net
Association of Jewish Library Convention
Summer 2000
by Margaret Burka
It was my pleasure to attend the Association
of Jewish Libraries National Convention this past June, In Washington,
D.C. Going to a convention can be a wonderful opportunity to meet people
or visit with those you have met before, enjoy delicious meals and fun
entertainment, take in the sights of the area, etc. But it is first and
foremost an opportunity to exchange ideas with others in the profession,
and to gain new knowledge that will be of value to your libraries' patrons.
At Convention 2000, I attended several
educational sessions, which were all of interest to me, and which gave
me ideas for use this year and in future in my temple library.
The most useful session to me was the double
session on ideas for library programs in synagogues. Some ideas for children's
programming which I found intriguing included:
1) "Vidrash - Visual Images Documenting
& Relating to Ancient Scriptures in Harmony" - a different and creative
way of studying the Hebrew text.
Instructions included: "Choose one of your
favorite photos on any subject. Then look in the Bible, Machzor (High
Holiday prayer book), Siddur (daily prayer book), a book of Jewish
quotations or a book of poetry. Find a line or two that works just right
with the visual content of each of your photos. Mount your pictures, add
your captions and submit to the library for display." The students in the
religious school were all encouraged to participate, and the results were,
as the presenter put it, by turns "moving, thought-provoking, even funny."
2) One synagogue religious school had an
annual theme (e.g. "Shalom"), and the librarian spoke on ways she incorporated
this theme throughout the year in library programs for children, for example
compiling bibliographies for different grade levels of books concerning
the theme, or simply encouraging the children to give reports on books
of their choosing, in which they could describe how they thought the book
related to the theme.
3) Holding a Tzedakah Read-a-Thon: the
children in the school were encouraged to ask family and friends to donate
toward their reading of a certain number of books, the money to be given
to a charity of the child's choice. The Read-a-Thon winners were given
a prize (new books or some-thing similar), and were recognized at a family
service as well as being mentioned in the synagogue newsletter.
4) A Race to Read Good Books contest in
which students competed to answer questions, the answers to be found in
certain books, within a certain period. This could be done individually
or in teams. It is also helpful in teaching children how to use an on-line
catalog or card catalog.
5) An evening "Read-In," tied in with the
Book Fair. During Jewish Book Month, have the children and parents come
in with something to read, and have a light supper for them (pizza, e.g.).
Have a short "quiet reading time," maybe twenty minutes, after supper.
Then everyone adjourns to the Book Fair, to (hopefully) purchase lots of
new books or other materials, the proceeds to benefit the library.
6) To encourage Hebrew literacy, occasionally
have a story time in which the librarian or interested parents read a story
in Hebrew to the class, after which the students may check out only Hebrew
materials.
Although most of the ideas in the session
were geared to children, there were also a few for adult users of temple
libraries that I liked. Among them were:
1) Having a special Jewish Book Month Shabbat
to promote Jewish learning and appreciation of the library. Suggested activities
included inviting a speaker such as, a local author, have the library staff
do a presentation on a particular subject, using materials to be found
in the synagogue library, recognizing congregants who have made donations
to the library over the year, and recognizing those who work and/or volunteer
in the library.
2) If the temple is celebrating a special
anniversary year, compile a bibliography of books or other materials, the
same number as the anniversary year -, e.g. The 50 Best Books in the Synagogue
Library for a 50th anniversary. Make the bibliography available to members
and to the community.
3) A bibliography of Jewish historical
fiction was passed out - the presenters discussed each book, and pointed
out that by reading them all, a person who enjoys historical fiction would
gain a good understanding of Jewish history from Biblical times to the
present.
Other sessions that I attended were:
Because I learned so much at the Convention,
I would certainly recommend that any Judaica librarian attend future ones
if possible! If you would like to learn more about some of the sessions
I mentioned above, please contact me.
Margaret Burka, librarian,
6617 N. Mozart
Chicago, IL 60645
E-mail : DDStuhlman@earthlink.net.
Thursday, July 19, 2000
mburkalib@aol.com
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President Eva Eisenstein
eva@sholomchicago.org
Vice-President Rena Citrin
Rcitrin@ansheemet.org
Treasurer Judy Kupchan
yentefaige@aol.com
Recording Secretary Marcie Eskin
Bethillel@aol.com
Corresponding SecretaryJoy Kingsolver
(with Kathy Bloch).
Kbloch@spertus.edu, jkingsol@spertus.edu
Past-President Robbin Katzin
rkatzin@avenew.com
Lakeside Congregation for Reform Judaism
Highland Park IL 60035
mburkalib@aol.com 847-432-7950 (W)
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Fall Meeting
Regenstein Library, University of Chicago
1100 E. 57th St. Chicago
Our hosts will be Mrs. Irmgard Rosenberger and Shoshanah Seidman. We will start at 10:30 with a presentation by Special Collections Curator, Alice Schreyer in the Special Collections area. This will be followed by a short business meeting. Shoshanah will be happy to lead a tour for those who are interested in seeing more of the library. We will then be the guests of Mrs. Rosenberger at the Quadrangle Club across the street for a fruit plate lunch.
It is important to know how many people are planning to attend, Please
RSVP to: Rena Citrin by October 31 at R.Citrin@bzaeds.starship.com or 773.281.1858
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The Center for Jewish History
During the Labor Day weekend preparing
for my new venture, I was in New York. I visited the new Center for Jewish
History on West 17th Street in Manhattan. The building actually
has entrances on both 16th and 17th streets. This
new building is just opening to the public this September. The Center is
joint effort of YIVO, the Leo Baeck Institute, the American Jewish Historical
Society, the American Sephardic Federation and the Yeshiva University Museum.
These organizations have performed a great service for students and scholars
of Judaica by pulling their resources to form one organization. The logistical
problems to move the library collections were daunting. The American Jewish
Historical Society was previously housed on the campus of Brandeis University
in Waltham, MA. The other institutions were in New York City. These institutions
have different roots and missions, but they share a mission to save and
preserve the history in order to educate future generations. To find out
more visit their joint web site www.centerforjewishhistory. com/log2.htm.
This site has links to each of the constituent organizations. One of their
joint missions is to act as a resource for the study of Jewish genealogy.
They will shortly have a computer system in operation to help researchers
find the information in any of the constituent libraries. The libraries
share a reading room.
While all four institutions want to help preserve the Jewish past, they complement each other rather than overlap. YIVO seeks to collect materials in Yiddish and about Jews from Yiddish speaking countries; the Leo Baeck Institute collects materials concerning central European and German speaking Jewry; and the American Jewish Historical Society collects materials about the United States. For current materials published in the United States all three libraries may want to purchase them; but for ephemera, manuscripts, and archival materials they would logically go to one institution based on their collection development policy.
YIVO (Yidisher Visenshaftlikher Institut)
= Institute for Jewish Research
YIVO was founded at a conference that took
place in Berlin, August 7-12, 1925. (A fuller story can be found in the
Encyclopedia
Judaica v. 16.) Vilna was selected as its center and YIVO reached its
peak in 1935 when they held a conference attended by leading scholars from
the world's Yiddish speaking communities. By 1940 when the Nazis occupied
Vilna, YIVO's library had amassed more than 100,000 volumes and more than
100,000 manuscripts and archival items. About 50% of these items survived
the Holocaust and were sent with the help of the U.S. Army and State Department
to the New York headquarters. YIVO's Library is dedicated to collection,
preservation, and study of Eastern European Jewish culture and the places
to where Eastern European Jewry immigrated. Today, the collection contains
more than 300,000 printed volumes and more than 500,000 non-book items
and includes religious and secular materials that mirror Jewish life in
those countries.
The Vilna Collection is part of the core
collection of the YIVO Library. The Vilna collection includes more than
20,000 books from the Mattityahu Strashun Library. (The other surviving
Strashun Library books are now part of the Jewish National Library at the
Hebrew University in Jerusalem.) This collection of rabbinica (mostly in
Hebrew) that belonged to the Strashun Library was cataloged on cards during
the 1960's by the late Rabbi Hayim Lieberman.
Mattityahu Strashun, 1819-1885, was a talmudical
scholar born in Vilna. His family was well-to-do and he married the eldest
daughter of the wealthy. Joseph Elijah Eliasberg. He had an extensive knowledge
of philosophy, history and astronomy beyond his Jewish scholarship. He
was a Jewish communal leader and was appointed to the Vilna city council.
The oldest books in the collection date to the early 16th century. Since
he died childless, he willed his collection of 5,700 books, many with his
marginal annotations, to the Jewish community of Vilna. In addition, he
left money for a building and maintaining the collection. The first director
of the library was Samuel Strashun, his nephew. The collection was kept
current. In 1928 the library started collecting every book published in
Poland in Hebrew or Yiddish. By 1939 the library contained more than 35,000
volumes and included 150 manuscripts and five incanabula.
Are you prepared for a
crisis in the library? From the 2000 AJL Convention There were many excellent presentations
at the 2000 AJL annual convention, but the only one that aroused a degree
of anxiety was that of Poshi Mikalson's on dealing with the fire-bombing
of the library at Congregation B'nai Israel in Sacramento, California.
She gave a brief, but eloquent and moving history of the aftermath of
the event, covering the psychological, logistical, and public relations
(including national television) aspects. More important, for the benefit
of her listeners, she gave an outline of what we can do now to help minimize
the devastating effects of a library disaster (fire, flood, earthquakes,
tornado). Of course, no one is ever "prepared" for a disaster, but one
can try to minimize the damage by investing time in preventive actions,
such as those Poshi provided on a checklist. She asks questions such as:
1) Has your library collection been professionally
evaluated for insurance purposes?
2) Is your collection adequately insured?
3) Do you keep a backup/copy of your online/offline
catalog/shelf list offsite?
These are questions we prefer not to think
about, but we should. If anyone is interested in a copy of her complete
checklist, please contact me.
AJL 2001 Convention The San Diego/Tijuana Chapter of AJL invites
you to attend the 2001 AJL Convention: "A Tale of Two Cities." It will
take place from June 24-27, 2001 at the La Jolla Marriott. Make your plans
now.
If you have any thoughts on programming,
places to visit in San Diego, or any other general information you think
might help in making Convention 2001 an unforgettable experience, please
contact us by email.
Barbara Sutton & Nomi Levy
Next issue: Spertus
Institute gets Aleph
by Eva Eisenstein
barbaras@lfjcc.com nlevy@hebrewday.org
Co-chairs AJL Convention 2001
The
Asher Library is planning web access to over 100,000 items in their collection.
Watch this space for the full story.
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Last revised Oct. 04, 2001