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