Dear all:
Please see below the agenda of the RAS Division meeting and below that, the minutes of last year’s RAS Division meeting. The meeting will take place on
Tuesday, June 25, 2024 from 10:45-11:30am in San Diegan/Presidio. I wish everyone safe travels and look forward to seeing you there.
Warm regards,
Aaron
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Agenda of the Research Libraries, Archives, and Special Libraries (RAS) Division Meeting, AJL Conference, San Diego, CA, Tuesday, June 25, 2024, 10:45-11:30am
- Approval of Last year’s RAS Division meeting minutes.
- Reports from Committee Chairpersons.
RAS Awards Committee (Eitan Kensky; with remarks from Lies Meiboom, co-winner, with Emile Schrijver, of the
RAS Award for Bibliography for their co-edited Fables in Jewish culture : the Jon A. Lindseth Collection)
RAS Cataloging Committee (Daniel Scheide)
Judaica Librarianship (Rachel Leket-Mor)
RAS Programming (Konstanze Kunst)
Education Committee (Haim Gottschalk)
AJL/AJS Liaison (Rachel Greenblatt)
Judaica and Hebraica Librarianship Certification Program (Michelle Margolis)
International Relations (Katalin Rac)
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Outreach and bringing young librarians to AJL (Gail Shirazi).
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AJL Israel Studies LIBGUIDE? (Rachel Greenblatt and Michelle Margolis).
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Open forum/Good and welfare.
Minutes of the Research, Archives, and Special Libraries (RAS) Division Meeting, A World of Possibilities: AJL Digital Conference, Juneteenth, Monday, June 19, 2023, 2:00-3:15 PM EDT
Minutes sent to the AJL Council, 08/22/2023
Much of the meeting was devoted to committee chairpersons presenting their committee’s report (submitted well in advance of the conference) to the Division. A copy of those reports follows the minutes.
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Approval of Last Year’s RAS Division Meeting Report (PowerPoint)
The minutes were approved without amendment.
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RAS Cataloging Committee and Cataloging Workshops (Neil Frau-Cortes and Haim Gottschalk)
Neil Frau-Cortes (Broward County Public Libraries) stated that he will be stepping down from the position of Chairperson of the RAS Cataloging Committee. Daniel Scheide (Florida Atlantic University) will assume the Chairperson position.
Nahid Gerstein (Library of Congress) stepped down from the Committee, and Gabriel Angulo completed two terms. Lili Brown (Stanford University) and David Floyd (Binghamton University) joined the Committee as new members. The current Committee membership is:
Daniel Scheide, Lili Brown, David Floyd, Nora Dolliver (NYPL), David Roth (NLI), Haim Gottschalk (LC), Joan Biella (LC, ex-officio, lifetime), and Jeremiah Aaron Taub (LC, ex-officio). The RAS President thanked Neil, Nahid, and Gabe for their outstanding service
and thanked and welcomed Daniel, Lili, and David to the Committee.
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Books about Books (Haim Gottschalk)
AJL President Michelle Margolis organized a program by Nick Underwood (assistant professor history and the Berger/Neilsen Chair of Judaic Studies at The College of Idaho), who presented about leftist Yiddish-language libraries and
readers in interwar Paris, which took place on December 15, 2022. Haim noted that he was preparing for a presentation by Dr. Marat Grinberg (Reed College), author of
The Soviet Jewish Bookshelf: Jewish Culture and Identity Between the Lines
(Brandeis University Press, 2023), which took place on July 19, 2023. Additional Books about Books programs are in the works.
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Reference and Bibliography Awards Committee (Eitan Kensky)
Eitan Kensky (Stanford University), Chairperson of the Reference and Bibliography Awards Committee, presented the winners of this year’s Reference and Bibliography Awards. During earlier correspondence, it was suggested that the
year in which the award was given, rather than the year of publication, be noted as year in the Committee’s press release. An online gathering with the winners is in the works for fall 2023.
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Judaica Librarianship (Rachel Leket-Mor)
Rachel Leket-Mor (Arizona State University) thanked all of those who helped complete the back-issues upload project as well as Nancy Sack for her stellar editorial work, and discussed a wide range of issues regarding the journal.
Michelle Margolis noted that there is so much information available in back issues of
JL regarding a broad range of both RAS and SSC matters. Rachel noted that Nadav Sharon and
Hannah Srour-Zackon will be guest editors of the 2024 issue which will focus on Canadian Jewish collections. Meeting attendees congratulated Rachel on the wonderful 2022 issue of
JL and on the journal’s 40th anniversary celebration that was held later in the conference. The celebration was moderated by Dr. Arthur Kiron (University of Pennsylvania)and featured Rachel and previous
JL editors, Zachary Baker (emeritus, Stanford University) and Dr. Bella Hass Weinberg (emeritus, St. John’s University). Lisa Silverman alerted attendees to the AJL trivia game that would conclude the
JL anniversary celebration panel.
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AJL/AJS Liaison Activities (Rachel Greenblatt’s report presented by Eitan’s in Rachel Greenblatt’s absence)
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AJL/JTS Judaica and Hebraica Librarianship Certification Program (Michelle Margolis)
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Acquisition of streaming format (TV series, movies) from Israeli vendors (Konstanze Kunst)
Konstanze Kunst (Yale University) raised the issue of the challenge of acquiring streaming movies and TV series from Israeli vendors for library collections. She noted that there are many films and TV series that are not available
anymore via DVD and that the acquisition of streaming content especially from smaller Israeli vendors is difficult because of steep pricing and issues with licensing, access, and subtitles (often burned-in so that it is impossible to watch without them) for
example. If one goes through a subscription service, films are sometimes removed from platforms. Some films become available but without English subtitles or only with burned-in English subtitles. Someone suggested that perhaps having machine-generated subtitles
could help. However, it was noted that machine-generated translation cannot replace the work of a professional translator. It was suggested that a consortium of librarians be formed to advocate for greater film availability and a more stable collection method.
A small task force will be formed to look at this issue in October. Please contact Konstanze at
konstanze.ku...@yale.edu.
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Good and welfare
Minutes taken by Yermiyahu Ahron Taub and submitted to the AJL Council listserv, August 22, 2023
Committee Reports Submitted to Council in Advance of the AJL 2023 Conference
AJL RAS Cataloging Committee Report 2022-2023
In the period of 2022-2023, the AJL RAS Cataloging Committee has continued to promote events on Hebraica and Judaica cataloging, with the help of
many members and former members.
The committee held a single annual meeting on June 16, 2022, while the next annual meeting has already been scheduled for June 15, 2023. Among the
subjects discussed by the committee with the participation of other catalogers were:
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The creation of a list of “droppable words” such as
sefer, kuntres, shut.
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Updates from the National Library of Israel and from the Library of Congress.
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Discussion on diversity in LCSH regarding the assumption that unless indicated, all liturgy is supposed to be Ashkenazic.
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Discussion on recruiting and training new Hebraica-Judaica catalogers.
In the framework of this training, the Committee sponsored a series of seminars for new catalogers, organized by Haim Gottschalk, Jasmin Shinohara,
and Aaron Taub, as well as a series of cataloging forums organized by Haim.
This year there were five Cataloging Forums:
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Introduction to Hebrew Paleography – session led by Judith Olszowy-Schlager (July 28, 2022). This session was a carry from the previous year.
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LCDGT Headings – session led by Veronica Ranieri and Haim Gottschalk (November 11, 2022)
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MARC 510 Notes Field – session led by Haim Gottschalk (February 27, 2023)
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Understanding the Rules of Sheva and Kamats – session led by Ben Outhwaite (March 17)
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Provenance in Rare Book Cataloging (MARC 561) – session led by Louis Meiselman (May 18, 2023)
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Altogether, the Cataloging Committee hosted 8 Cataloging Forums in two years. Additionally, many individuals began viewing the recordings.
Past Forums were:
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The LC classifications of BM vs. KBM (November 23, 2021)
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Introduction to Cataloging Hebrew Manuscripts (March 3, 2022)
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Form Heading and Genre Terms (May 24, 2022)
Reference & Bibliography Awards Committee
Report from Eitan Lev Kensky, Chairperson
The Reference and Bibliography Awards committee is composed of the following members: Eitan Kensky, Anna Levia, Sharon Benamou, Diane Mizrahi, and Daniel Kestenbaum. The committee very happily selected the following
two books as the award winners: Early Jewish Cookbooks by András Koerner (Bibliography); and Wartime North Africa: A Documentary History, 1934–1950, edited by Aomar Boum and Sarah Abrevaya Stein (Reference). Work has begun for next year's awards,
honoring works published in 2023: Konstanze Kunst will be joining the committee and we have begun to receive prize nominations/submissions.
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Judaica Librarianship Editor Report, June 2023
Rachel Leket-Mor
Charge
The Editor of AJL’s peer-reviewed journal solicits articles of potential interest, manages the submission and Anonymous Reviewer/Anonymous Author peer-review processes, edits the journal’s content, collaborates
with authors and copyeditor on revisions, sets the final layout of the articles (Adobe’s InDesign), publishes the articles with appropriate metadata, and manages the online journal publishing system. Finally, the editor engages in active promotion of the
journal through academic channels and social media.
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Completed the back-issue upload project, adding all remaining content to the online platform (issues 1–8, 1983–1994). A big thank-you to the volunteers who assisted with preparing the
PDF’d files for publication and
adding metadata: Sharon Benamou, Lili Brown, Yossi Galron, Ilka Gordon, Uri Kolodney, Konstanze Kunst, Amalia Levi, Yahm Levin, Michelle Margolis, Nancy Sack, Hannah Srour,
and Sheryl Stahl.
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Volume 23 is in progress, with several articles submitted and others due next month.
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Volume 24, co-edited by guest editors Nadav Sharon and
Hannah Srour-Zackon, is under way as well.
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I hope to invite additional guest editors for future issues.
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I thank JL editorial board members and JL’s copyeditor Nancy Sack for their support. The editorial board will meet next month due to my June vacation.
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For the Agenda: JL’s indispensable copy editor Nancy Sack is retiring from the University of Hawaii at Manoa Library at the end of the month. She will
keep volunteering for JL through the work on Volume 23. Gifted copy editors are rare and it would be difficult to find her equivalent. I would like to keep working with her. Is there any way AJL can hire her services?
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Please see below for a graph summarizing article downloads since JL moved to OJS in early 2020 (currently 647 files; the January 2023 increase was probably due to the back issues project work, completed at the
beginning of April):
<image001.png>
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Rachel L. Greenblatt
AJS Liaison Update for RAS business meeting 2023
Our main activity during the past year was the successful running of two panels at the 2022 AJS Conference in Boston, a
professional development panel and a separate book history panel. The professional development panel built on the success of our 2021. The primary purpose of this panel was to introduce scholars of Jewish Studies, particulary PhD students, to the possibility
of pursuing careers and librarians or archivists, within the realm of Jewish Studies. In 2021, the panel consisted of several curators/selectors from academic libraries. It proved an excellent opportunity to raise awareness among academics of what it is that
reference librarians and curators at their institutions do, and how they can work together. This year, we had a better variety of career paths represented: curator, cataloger, archivist. Anne Oravetz Albert, representing a different Jewish Studies career
path aside from the tenure track moderated. Anne is
Klatt Family Director for Public Programs at the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, and Executive Editor of the Jewish Quarterly Review.
Catalogers were Haim Gottschalk of the Library of Congress and Marlene Schiffman of Yeshiva University. Eitan Kensky represented curators, and Hannah Srour-Zackon archivist and museum director at Congregation
Shaar Hashomayim in Montreal, Quebec, enthralled the audience with her tale of turning two filing cabinets into a full-time position.
In 2022, there was distinct interest from several audience members nearing completion of their PhDs in the nuts and bolts of career paths discussed. There were about 15-20 people in attendance.
The book history panel, ““Too Much to Know": Managing Information about Jewish Books, Past and Present,” successfully brought together librarians
and academics. It was chaired by Joshua Teplitsky and featured: Adam Shear, ”Categorizing Jewish Books in the Sixteenth Century: Subjects, Materials, and Other Categorization Scheme”; Martina Mampieri, “The Scientific Study of Medieval and Early Modern
Books: Isaiah Sonne’s Contribution to STUDIES IN BIBLIOGRAPHY AND BOOKLORE”; Konstanze Kunst, “The ‘Handlist of Hebrew Manuscripts and Documents Illustrating Jewish History and Literature in the Collection of Cecil Roth’ within the History of ‘Books About
Jewish Books’; Michelle Margolis, moderator. These papers afforded an opportunity to dig into questions of categorization, collectors, collections, private & pubic collections – at times by the same individual. We had the opportunity that I had sought to put
librarians and historians in direct conversation in discussing these topics. The audience joined in this conversation quite profitably.
We have submitted a proposal for a professional development panel for the 2023 AJS conference in San Francisco.
Goals for 2023-24 include picking back up on an earlier idea:
Building on preliminary work done in gathering contact information for Judaica librarians that was done in late 2022, to develop and test launch a Jewish Studies reference service available to scholars who do not have institutional
access to a librarian with expertise in this realm.
AJL/AJS Librarianship Certification Program (from the President’s Report)
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Worked with Naomi Steinberger, Jeremiah Aaron Taub, and Marjorie Lehman on the RAS Judaica Librarianship Education Program in partnership with JTS:
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15 students in the first class (Judaica Cataloging)
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Graduate training
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New librarians, archivists
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US, Canada, Italy, Lithuania, and
Ukraine
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4 instructors
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Summer class: Judaica Collection Development
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Fall: Judaica Reference, Academic Jewish Studies
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Applied for and received multiple grants (one pending with IMLS) to support the program
