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Holocaust Denial Literature Twenty Years Later: A Follow-up Investigation of Public Librarians' Attitudes Regarding Acquisition and Access
Full text linkThis study was undertaken to learn about public librarians' attitudes and opinions concerning the sometimes conflicting issues of intellectual freedom, collection balance, and controversial materials, and whether those attitudes and opinions have changed over twenty years. The investigation focused on Holocaust denial literature, a body of work which ranges from minimizing the Holocaust to outright denying that it happened. Public librarians in Nassau County, New York, were surveyed, and the results were compared with a similar survey from 1992. The results indicate that librarians are even more open to Holocaust denial literature than they were twenty years ago and, regardless of outside pressures, would acquire and provide ready access to this material in their libraries
Unicums, Fragments, and Other Hebrew Book Rarities
Full text linkThe subject matter of this article is unique or rare editions of early Hebrew books. Due to varying external circumstances, these rare books are extant only in fragments, unique single exemplars, or in a limited number of copies. Although Hebrew texts were subject to the same ravages of time and, perhaps, occasional indifference as were other early books, they also suffered to a much greater extent than their non-Hebrew counterparts from the indignities and deeds, or more accurately misdeeds, of anti-Semites who expended their wrath not only on Jews but also directed their venom towards Jewish books. The article is not about the causes of book rarity per se, but rather describes a variety of Hebrew works, either of the individual title, or, in some instances, of a particular edition of a reprinted work that is extant today in a single or a limited number of copies
Be-tzelem Elohim — In the Image of God: Identifying Essential Jewish LGBTQ Books for Jewish Libraries
Full text linkThe authors take as a given that all libraries should include books on Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Transgender and Queer (LGBTQ) issues. This article discusses the challenges of collection development in this area and the factors that necessitate LGBTQ Jewish materials' inclusion in Jewish academic, school, synagogue, and community libraries. The article makes recommendations for a range of Jewish libraries on what essential books and movies on this topic are
The Shavzin-Carsch Collection of Historic Jewish Children's Literature
Full text linkThe Shavzin-Carsch Collection of Cincinnati's Isaac M. Wise Temple is a special collection devoted to historically significant American Jewish children's literature. As of this writing, there are over seven hundred volumes in the collection, including early children's books published by the Jewish Publication Society, titles listed in early juvenile bibliographies of the Jewish Book Annual, and books cited in key retrospective articles on Jewish children's literature. This paper describes the collection, and relates how it came to be established, its potential uses to researchers, and future issues to be considered in its expansion
Judaica Europeana: An Infrastructure for Aggregating Jewish Content
Full text linkJudaica Europeana envisions a world in which all digitized Jewish content in a variety of databases worldwide is aggregated and made accessible to users and applications anywhere, at any time. It seeks to set the ground so such content is cross-linked to conceptual structures (vocabularies, encyclopedias) that enrich them and provide contextual significance.
Judaica Europeana is part of a cluster of projects building Europeana, a Linked Data infrastructure initiative of the European Commission. Judaica Europeana involves now some thirty-five partners from Europe, America and Israel, among them some of the most important Jewish content holders running long term digitization programs. It aggregated more than five million digital cultural objects and is continuing to process more. The data model (EDM) for describing these contents is that adopted by both leading world initiatives, Europeana and the Digital Public Library of America. The basic approach enabling EDM and based on the application of protocols and standards like RDF and Linked Data is surveyed and some actual examples of their current applications provided.
The critical role of vocabularies for conceptual integration and access to contents is reviewed. A work program is outlined for the use of such vocabularies (thesauri, taxonomies, encyclopedias, etc.) to enrich the digitized content, interlink its diverse manifestations, and provide context and meaning. A first substantial achievement in carrying out such program is the publication of the YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe as Linked Data.
Two main challenges facing the domain in the near future are detailed: (1) How to expand the availability, reaching a critical mass, of Jewish related vocabularies supporting queries like Who? What? When? Where? and expressed in the Linked Data/SKOS formats. (2) How the solid bases of such infrastructure so established may have an enabling effect in the development of new services: sophisticated offerings to the patrons of websites/portals, advanced K-12 ICT-based education, mobile cultural tourism applications, e-books, digital narratives storytelling, digital humanities scholarship, virtual research environments, MOOCs
Rachel: The Union Catalog of the European Network of Judaica and Hebraica Libraries
Full text linkThe union catalog Rachel was launched in 2004 by four Parisian private libraries with significant holdings in Judaica and Hebraica. Further developed by the Réseau Européen des Bibliothèques Judaica et Hebraica (REBJH; European Network of Judaica and Hebraica Libraries), Rachel moves forward the network’s mission to promote the preservation and increase the use of the recorded heritage of the Jewish people in Europe and around the world. The article reviews the history of the REBJH and its founding members, analyses cataloging practices of member institutions of Rachel, and describes user services provided by this union catalog
