Baltimore Hebrew Institute Collection

Baltimore Hebrew Institute Collection

at Towson University

“To preserve, generate, transmit and apply knowledge of Judaism through the teaching of its culture and civilization within the

context of world civilization.”--BHU mission statement

 “To serve the institution, support the curriculum, and provide resources to scholars and members of the public.”

--BHU library mission statement

Scope of the collection

• Size80,000 items

• FormatsBooksPeriodicalsDVDs VideocassettesCassettesMicroformsCD-ROMsE-resources

• Languages English Hebrew Yiddish Russian, Spanish, German, French

Description

Contents

• Bible and Religion• Rabbinics• Jewish History• Archaeology• Jewish Philosophy• Political Science• Israel and the Middle

East

• Sociology• Jewish Education• Language and Literature• Fine Arts• Genealogy • Liturgy• Juvenile books

• Holocaust Survivor Testimonies Video Archives

• Jewish Cultural Reconstruction Collection

• Memorial books (Yizkor books)

• Rare Book Collection

Special collections

• Size• Scope• Emphasis• Languages• Imprints

Rare book collection

 • Reference – beginning of stacks on 2nd floor• Books - 2nd floor stacks• Periodicals – 2nd floor stacks  • Current periodicals – Periodicals reading room• Media – Media Resource Services• Rare books - Archives• Juvenile collection- 2nd floor

Where has it all gone?

Areas that will be affected:• Circulation• Technical Services• Reference• Archives

What does it mean to the library staff?

• New locations for shelving• New collection identified by spine labels• New borrowers• Increase in number and type of ILL requests

Circulation

• Ordering• Cataloging• Processing

Technical Services

• New students• New programs• New faculty• New subject specialties• New language

Reference

• Databases• Other electronic resources• Journals• Websites

Research

Web Resources

• Reference – JewishEncycolpedia.com – Navagating The Bible (World ORT) – A Page of Talmud (Eliezer Segal) – Jewish Communities of the World (World Jewish Congress) – Jewish Virtual Library (American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise)

• Jewish Search Tools – Jewish.com – Andrew Tannenbaum's Judaism and Jewish Resources – MavenSearch: Jewish Web Directory – Shamash: The Jewish Network

• Jewish Studies – Academic Jewish Studies Internet Directory – Index of Electronic Resources for Judaic and Cognate Studies (University of Pennsylvania Library) – Judaica Libraries/Judaica Resources (Association of Jewish Libraries) – Middle East and Jewish Studies (Columbia University Libraries) – Academic Guide to Jewish History (University of Toronto Libraries) – JewishGen – Jewish Genealogy Society of Maryland

• Jewish Communal Service – StaRGate: Gateway to Jewish Communal Resources – The Associated Jewish Community Federation of Baltimore – The Darrell D. Friedman Institute

• Jewish Education – JESNA – Lookstein Virtual Resource Center – CAJE- Coalition for the Advancement of Jewish Education – Center for Jewish Education

• Jewish Newspapers – The Jerusalem Post – Ha'aretz (Hebrew) – Ha'aretz Online (English) – The Forward – The Baltimore Jewish Times

• Research databases• Subject gateways • Research Port • Journals• E-resources

Guiding research

• Cataloging issues• Problems involving multi-lingual records• Problems resolved with integration of BHU and TU

databases• Accessibility of records:

• In process

BHI collection in the USMAI PAC

Advanced Search• Languages

HebrewYiddish

• CollectionsBaltimore Hebrew Institute

Searching the catalog

Go to WorldCat

• Advanced Search page• Enter search criteria (title, author, etc.)• Scroll down to “Limit availability to: Library Code___”• Enter “BHD”

Locating BHI call numbers

If there is no match in WorldCat• Delete BHD from limiters • Re-run search• Use LC number from any retrieved record to search BHI

collection

Locating BHI call numbers

Tips

Hebrew is different from English.

Tip #1

Hebrew (and Yiddish) reads from right to left

Hebrew (and Yiddish) books open from left to right

Hebrew-English keyboards exist.

Tip #2

Hebrew-English keyboard

Cook Library will have workstations with a Hebrew word processing program.

Tip #3

There are guides to English-Hebrew transliteration.

Tip #4

Hebrew in transliterationhttp://www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html

Aleph is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet.

Last word

Baltimore Hebrew Institute Collection

at Towson University