New in The Reading Room

Weekly Journal Review #12

The American Rabbi. Tu B’Shvat to Shavuot. 2007/5767.
General sermons, including Is Harry Potter an Abomination by Rick & Elissa Sherwin, Purim & Passover editorials & weekly commentaries for Exodus.

Hagar: Studies in Culture, Polity, Identities. Vol. 6 (2) Fall 2006.
Published by the Hubert Humphrey Institute for Social Research at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
Articles about bodies, boundaries and borders, in Israel, California & Cyprus.

Harvard Theological Review. 99:4, October 2006.
Special issue honoring the 5oth anniversary of the admission of women to the Harvard Divinity School, and the 25th anniversary of the Women’s Studies in Religion Program.
Guest editor: Ann Braude.

Hebraic Political Studies. Fall 2006. Vol. 1:5.
A peer reviewed journal aiming to “evaluate the place of the Jewish textual tradition, alongside with the traditions of Greece and Rome, in political history and the history of political thought.”
Includes a symposium on David Novak’s The Jewish Social Contract.

Ha-Kivun Mizrah. (Pointing East) #12, 2006. Hebrew.
Poetry, short stories, essays & interviews about the biographical and the autobiographical. Also a special homage to the poet Erez Biton.

Sefarad: Revista de Estudios Hebraicos, Sefardies y de Priente Proximo. Vol. 66:1 (January-June 2006)
Bi-Annual published in Madrid, Spain, with articles in English & Spanish about Jewish culture and languages, with an emphasis on Sephardic studies.

Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses. Vol. 35:3-4. 2006
Special issue in religious studies in Canada. Guest editor: Michel Gardaz.

Tradition: a Journal of Orthodox Jewish Thought. Vol. 39:4, Winter 2006.
Special issue on war and the Jewish tradition. Guest editor: Marc Stern.

Enjoy!
Yaffa

More Tales from the Teche!

I think I can speak for all the HUC-JIR librarians when I say that we're very excited about the new online Encyclopaedia Judaica (see your local librarian for URL and login instructions). We know that our students and faculty have been eagerly waiting for it and we suspect (and hope) they will use it extensively.

It includes some cool new features including the online Miriam-Webster dictionary and a (machine) translation option. You can translate EJ articles into eight different languages, including Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese, but not Hebrew.

Having said that, there are a few quirks and problems we're finding with it. In no particular order, here are a few things we've discovered:

* There is no spell-checker and very few cross-references. I searched on "Chanukah," "Chanukkah," and "Hanukah" but found no results. "Hannukah" oddly brought me to someone's biography. "Hanukkah" finally brought some results. Disappointingly, there were no helpful messages such as "did you mean Hanukkah"? In the paper index there was one entry for Chanukkah which directed you to their spelling.

* The relevancy rankings could be much better. They apparently rank only by the appearance of the word in the entry and not in the title (unless you searched by title). If you search for "Reform Judaism" you get 34 'hits.' The actual article on Reform Judaism is number 11 on the list - several entries below the article on Orthodoxy! HUC doesn't appear on the list at all.

* Poor editing. My colleagues and I have found many mistakes from incorrect dates, to missing information, to links that send you to the wrong entry.

Let us know what tips and or problems you discover! As always, if you have any questions, ask your local librarian. Happy Searching!

Weekly Review #11...and more

New Semester – New Weekly Reviews (#11) and News in general
(How many times can I say “New” in one sitting?)


So the good news is that since September of last year, I reviewed (well, described) over sixty (60) journals and magazines that we subscribe to at the Frances-Henry Library in Los Angeles. The better news is that I have in front of me a pile of fifteen journals, only four of which have not yet been reviewed. This means that we are very close to completing half the yearly cycle of periodic literature that is available for your research and knowledge seeking. It also means that from now on I will offer the reviews more sporadically, and focus on special issues and topics, rather than on the order in which these publications come. In short – linear approaches are out, complexities are in…
This fits into the general theme of the life of a librarian nowadays.
What does it mean, exactly, you ask?
Well, for example, we need to find creative solutions to the challenge of non-existing space for growth in the stacks. An immediate solution – a deliberate weeding process that is taking place with the help of faculty members, who are responding to our suggestion that they “own” their areas of teaching and scholarly pursuits. With their help, we have begun a process of moving dated, lesser used items to our storage area, to make room for newer, more useful items. We’ve also asked for their recommendations for new acquisitions, and we invite students to do the same through the “purchase recommendations” slips available at the circulation desk.
This, as I said, is just one example, and I would be delighted to share more in the future, and to hear your concerns and suggestions regarding this, as well as other issues, about access to needed materials.
And no, I did not forget the weekly review, so here it is:

Biblical Interpretation: A Journal of Contemporary Approaches. Vol. XIV, No. 5, 2006.
English & French. Of interest to students of Hebrew Scripture: Transcending the boundary of death: Ecclesiastes through a Nabokovian lens, by Michael Carasik, and Narrative surprise in Biblical parallels, by Baruch Alster.

Conservative Judaism. Vol. 58:4. Summer 2006.
Offering a special section on medical ethics; an article by Aryeh Cohen on Renewing the old and sanctifying the new, and book reviews.

The Israel Philatelist. Vol. LVII, No. 6, December 2006.
For stamp, coin and note collectors, a colorful magazine providing information on values, prices and general descriptions of philatelic delights.

Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies. Vol. 25:1. Fall 2006.
A special issue entitled: Beyond Klezmer: the Legacy of Eastern European Jewry, and a review essay by Ann Astell on New perspectives on Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ.
We’ll talk again next week.
Yaffa