I've had very positive responses to my proposal that we explore creating a set of online resource guides (see below). I think there is enough interest and energy behind this idea to make it worth exploring further. After this note, I will move the discussion offline to those who have expressed interest in working on this, so let me know if you want to be part of this discussion going forward.
I wanted to mention a couple of important points raised by those who have responded so far. One noted discussions already underway through AJL about the Jewish Digital Commons. I did a little poking around in Google and found some sites with similar names - one sponsored by the Center for Jewish History - but it wasn't clear to me how this would apply to the case I've raised. If you are one of those who is working on an AJL instance of the Jewish Digital Commons, I'd like to hear more about what this is and how this might be implemented. Another respondent mentioned a revamping of the AJL website and the possibility of supporting resource guides within that platform. Again, if you are one of those who is working on this project and could provide more information, esp. related to the possibility of supporting the proposed guides, I'd like to be in touch. Quite a few members gave a thumbs-up to LibGuides as a potential platform, working with it within their library systems. I used it when I worked at UC Santa Cruz and thought it would be a good platform for supporting this work. However, as far as I understand this, order for all of us - across a wide assortment of institutions - to collaborate on a set of guides, I think we'd need to be enrolled under the auspices of a single organization. I've started to explore that with SpringShare, the host of LibGuides. One person mentioned a blog as a potential platform. I'm blog-blind, so this was a useful reminder of other approaches. I don't know how a blog would support this sort of work - they seem episodic and not easily organized - but I'm willing to learn whether there is application. Perhaps we could use a blog as a means of communicating about new resources and organizational issues among those managing the guides. I'm happy to hear other ideas. As mentioned, if you have an interest in participating or being kept in the loop, please let me know. I don't want to burden the whole list with this discussion as it gets more detailed but I will post updates when I think they'd be of interest to the whole list. Thanks, Lee Jaffe Temple Beth El, Aptos On Tue, Sep 2, 2014 at 11:09 AM, Lee Jaffe <[email protected]> wrote: > I wanted to see if there was interest in this group in developing a shared > collection of online resources for Jewish research and reading. I know AJL > maintains the Bibliography Bank and some other sites, but none of these > meet the need I'd like to address. I'm thinking of subject guides to > online resources - primarily free and available to all users - that we all > could use to assist our communities. > > As an example, look at the guides I've started to create for my Temple > library at https://sites.google.com/site/tbeaptoslib/guides. > > In the midst of doing this work, it occurred to me that I was probably > reinventing the wheel and this would be done better through a cooperative > effort. My idea is to organize a series of generic subject guides that > would be relevant and useful to anyone anywhere. Instead of dozens of us > researching, building and maintaining our own guides, there'd be one > centralized set of guides we'd build and maintain collectively. > > I can think of a couple of ways to approach this. This could happen under > the auspices of AJL - and perhaps "branded" as an AJL resource - or > privately by a group interested individuals. From the technical side, it > could be as simple as setting up a generic website, with shared ownership > and permissions, that will allow us to create and edit the guides > collaboratively. A more sophisticated arrangement - such as LibGuides - > would let us share components within a customized framework. > > I'd be glad to discuss and explore this idea with AJL as a whole or > individually with anyone interested in taking this further, > > Thank you, > > Lee Jaffe > Temple Beth El, Aptos >
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