Dear Colleagues, Please find below Lenore's letter to Yael Mandelstam of the Fordham Law Library and Sara Spiegel of the JTS Library regarding the evolving discussion on the development of Jewish law genre/form headings and the document itself attached. As Lenore states, we plan on examining this issue at the cataloging committee meeting at this year's AJL convention and developing a process for providing feedback.
See you in Seattle!
Best wishes,
Aaron Taub
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Dear Yael and Sara,
LC staff familiar with Jewish law met with Janis Young and Jolande Goldberg, of
the Policy and Standards Division (PSD), to consider further the draft list of
genre/form terms proposed by the group at the Jewish Theological Seminary. The
meetings were very productive, and the cataloging staff participating, who had
limited exposure to genre/form terms until this point, learned a great deal
from our PSD colleagues about the philosophy and evolving practices related to
developing and assigning genre/form terms.
The attached document includes all of the terms proposed by JTS, as well as
some additional terms noted by the LC discussants. The document is chiefly in
a table format designed to facilitate future discussion and to encourage
"filling in" additional information required regarding reference hierarchy,
scope notes, application, etc. Alongside the original JTS proposals are LC's
recommendations, as well as various explanatory notes and questions to be
answered.
There are a number of key issues that emerged from the discussions:
*Proposed g/f terms that were coextensive with uniform titles were not
recommended for inclusion (e.g., "Mishnayot")
*Proposed g/f terms that do not represent specifically Jewish law genres/forms,
but rather were translations of "generic" terms, were not recommended for
inclusion, but could be covered by generic English terms (e.g., "Harsha'ot"
could be covered by "Permits," if proposed and approved)
*Proposed g/f terms that do not represent exclusively legal genres/forms should
be given further consideration as to whether they belong in the law g/f list,
in the religion g/f list (under development), or in both lists (e.g.,
"Tannaitic literature"). A comprehensive evaluation should be undertaken of
the existing LCSH terminology in the hierarchy under "Rabbinical literature,"
to determine if/how to incorporate the proposed terms. A rough proposal is
presented for consideration.
*Proposed g/f terms that have corresponding LCSH terms: Consideration should be
given as to whether the terminology must be normalized, or if there is a
rationale for using different terminology for the g/f and the topical heading
(e.g., "Takkanot" and "Legislation (Jewish law)")
*Proposed g/f terms that were thought to be too specific were not recommended
for inclusion (e.g., "Peturim"). Note: A number of specific genres are under
consideration as proposed "upward UF's" to broader "bucket terms" in the law
genre/form list.
Legal materials
NT Legal instruments
Legal Instruments
UF Legal documents
NT Contracts
NT Deeds
NT Wills
etc.
*Three terms have already been incorporated into the draft law genre/form list:
Codes (Jewish law)
Responsa (Jewish law)
Takkanot
There are still some unresolved issues related to these three terms, and there
is clearly much more work to be done before other proposed Jewish law terms may
be added to the broader law genre/form list.
At Sara's recommendation, we will be forwarding this document to AJL's
Cataloging Committee, and posting it on associated listservs to generate
further discussion and feedback. At the Cataloging Committee meeting to be
held at the upcoming AJL convention, we hope to develop a framework/mechanism
for gathering the feedback and working toward consensus on a finalized list of
terms to be included.
Sara, I thank you and your colleagues at JTS for your initiative in proposing
the initial list, and Yael, I thank you and your group for your patience as
efforts continue to develop the specialized Jewish law terminology.
Please let me know if you have any questions at this point.
Best regards,
Lenore
Lenore Bell
Israel & Judaica Section, Asian & Middle Eastern Division Library of Congress
101 Independence Ave., SE
Washington, DC 20540-4222
(202) 707-7313
l...@loc.gov
Genre_Form_Jewish_Law_Table10jun19.docx
Description: Genre_Form_Jewish_Law_Table10jun19.docx
