Aaron Kuperman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: Are there any statistics suggesting how many books are published in Israel but not submitted to JNUL. I suspect it might be quite high especially for materials published by the Hareidi community?
Aaron Wolfe Kuperman LC, Social Science Cataloging Division, Law Team =============== Aaron Shalom This is one of my personal pet projects. I would guesstimate about 500 titles a year not including periodicals and ephemera. As well known the Haredi community are nervous about submitting copies to JNUL for various reasons: such as being hounded by income tax on Sifrei Kodesh that lose money anyway or lack of awareness about the Repository law or sometimes for anti-zionist reasons. I monthly post on my website www.virtualgeula.com about 10 such titles from about 30 per month that are displayed weekly by a Jerusalem distributor for the last 5 years. He puts several copies of these new and generally uncataloged titles on a table at the entrance to about 40 Shules in Israel. Chained to the bottom of the table are metal "Pushkas" with one Pushka per book and if you want to buy the Sefer (at a reduced or cost price in general) you put the money in the Pushka and help yourself. Many of these Seforim are interesting and ocasionally some are outstanding. In addition to these Seforim there are 5 to 10 titles weekly in Yeted Neeman of which two-thirds are new and from my experience half of these are not cataloged by libraries. Almost 75% of these are self-published and I am sure many of them don't reach JNUL. However they may be cataloged by a different library on the ULS such as Bar Ilan, Alon Shevut, Rambam, or Tel Aviv Univ. etc. I am sure the same statistics are true for the Seforim column in HaModia newspaper. Similarily there are now new Seforim "wall-sheets" put up on bulletin boards which show up to 4 or 5 new Seforim a week. The largest of these called "Seforim" has appeared weekly for over a year and has a lot of new Hassidic authors who are almost universally unfindable on the ULS. Other sources of new self-published Seforim are the bulletin boards in Yeshivas particularly the Mir Yeshiva where a Mehaber who has printed a "learning" Sefer will feel comfortable and happy to announce his new Sefer. For years I have wanted to create a system which will capture and catalog these books but for lack of funding (actually only very modest sums are needed) and lack of interest in the general library world I continue this project more as a personal hobby. On my website I have an Excel file with retrospective cataloging from 2004-2007 which is free for anyone to take. Since these Seforim are often hard to find I am also careful to record author and distributor contact information so if someone asks for the sefer I'll know where to get it. I also try to put up 3 or 4 snapshots of the: title page cover and an inside page - since I believe seeing the book is the most effective way to know what is in it. BeVracha Yaakov Rosenes Judaica Archival Project [EMAIL PROTECTED] fax 1-805-9263137 J. Rosenes Judaica Archival Project [EMAIL PROTECTED] fax 1-805-9263137 Messages and opinions expressed on Hasafran are those of the individual author and are not necessarily endorsed by the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) =========================================================== Submissions for Ha-Safran, send to: Hasafran @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu SUBscribing, SIGNOFF commands send to: Listproc @ lists.acs.ohio-state.edu Questions, problems, complaints, compliments;-) send to: galron.1 @ osu.edu Ha-Safran Archives: Current: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/maillist.html History: http://www.mail-archive.com/hasafran%40lists.acs.ohio-state.edu/history.html AJL HomePage http://www.JewishLibraries.org
