Association of Jewish Libraries Conference - RAS Division Meeting
Tuesday, June 19, 2018
10:45 AM – 11:30 AM
Temple Israel, Boston, MA
Agenda
1. Welcome & Call to Order – Rebecca Jefferson
2. Approval of the June 2017 RAS Division Meeting Minutes (below)
3. RAS President’s Report
4. Notes from the Board & Council Meetings
5. Committee Reports
* RAS Cataloging Committee – Jerry Anne Dickel
* Judaica Librarianship – Rachel Leket-Mor
* RAS Bibliography and Reference Awards – Rachel Simon
* AJL International Liaison Update - Rebecca Jefferson
6. Old Business: Rebecca Jefferson
* Funding for international participants
* Out with the old and in with the new: Introducing new RAS President,
Michelle Chesner
7. New Business: Michelle Chesner
* Introduction to the new RAS VP: Amalia S. Levi
* Call for a new RAS Secretary
* New International Liaison needed
* New RAS Cataloging Chair: Heidi Lerner
* Discussion of new initiatives/foci for the coming term
· Formal AJS panel (for 2019?)
* Other items
· Sharon Benamou would like to discuss with RAS members UCLA’s new
initiative to advocate for retrospective conversion of OCLC records to include
scripts where they do not exist.
8. Close meeting
This meeting is followed by the General Membership Meeting and Installation of
the Board, 11.30-12.15 (Chapel).
RAS Minutes: June 20, 2017
1. Call to order; approval of minutes
* Called to order at 11:16
* Michelle moved to approve the minutes, Shmuel seconded, passed
2. RAS President’s report – Rebecca Jefferson
* Littauer Foundation funding
* This year we were awarded $6000, but also told that this is the
last year of funding. So we need to look into new options for international
stipends
* Question of whether the Rothschild Foundation would fund
Europeans to come to the conference; perhaps we can focus on a training
program, or AJL chapters in Europe
* Daniel recommended moving the bank account to Europe
* Rebecca asked for members to join a new committee to focus on
finding new funding. Please be in touch with her to join this committee
* RAS Bibliography and Reference Award funding
* Both awards increased to $1500. Thanks to Dr. Greta Silver and
Eric Chaim Kline
* World Congress of Jewish Studies Conference
* We received proposals, but none that came together for a common
theme for a session, so we opted not to send in a proposal. We need to start
the process earlier and focus more on that.
* David Hirsch, new International liaison noted that the European
Congress of Jewish Studies is meeting next July (?) in Krakow. Rachel Simon
said that the deadline for applications may have already passed. We should
look into other conferences as well.
* Notes relevant to RAS from Board and Council meetings
* Fundraising - we mutually terminated our contract with the previous
fundraising company (Elevate); are now looking into a new person - we will try
to work with this person for 3 months (July-September) to see if it’s worth
continuing to hire a professional fundraiser.
* Strategic Plan - 3 (?) year plan came to an end this year, a new
committee is in place to begin some of the work on the recommendation - looking
for new members, especially to create a new vision. Reach out to Jackie
Benefraim if you’re interested in joining the planning group.
* Importance of promoting AJL at other conferences as well; papers
relating to AJL, possibly a booth if relevant.
* AJL Affiliation - Jackie said that a final policy has been drafted,
many organizations identified.
* Webinars - we are doing them in conjunction with ALA - there are lots
of potential topics. We need presenters! The goal is to reach librarians who
work with Judaica (non-specialists)
* Rebecca J. - Collection Development
* Sheryl S. - Two sessions on cataloging
* Next conference in Boston (2018); Jim asked for locations for 2019.
Boston will probably be a similar situation to NYC.
1. Committee Reports
* RAS Cataloging Committee – Jerry Anne Dickel
* Romanization FAQ page on the wiki (Jasmin)
* Romanization vote of Hebrew words with Greek/Latin roots - new
policy (deramah is now dramah). List of words will be maintained on the wiki.
* Continued work on editing Hebraica Cataloging for RDA manual.
Going on hold for a bit while major changes to RDA go through. Linked on the
wiki (Jerry Anne is hoping to convert the manual to html so it can reside on
the wiki)
* Judaica Librarianship – Rachel Leket-Mor
* Racheli demonstrated ajlpublishing.org - how you can see the number
of downloads; importance of sending links rather than PDFs so we can track the
download count. Can search the journal, go to specific volumes. Past issues →
volume 8 are now up. It is a huge amount of work to find all of the
information from the articles (cut and pasting, etc).
* Racheli would love volunteers - Jasmin and Uri offered to help.
Thank you!
* Q: Can you sign up to be notified when a new volume comes out?
A: Yes - there’s an email alert option; Racheli also announces on Hasafran when
they come out.
* Map showing downloads - 118 in the last week; 21K total!
* Authors get notifications of how many people downloaded their
articles as well.
* Next issue: even bigger issue, great articles, and a new column
for reviews of digital humanities projects in Jewish Studies. Should be
available as soon as possible.
* New call for papers will come out in July (for v.21, 2019)
* Sheryl noted that Hasafran and the membership list are not the
same, and that we should send out notifications to the membership list as well.
* RAS Bibliography and Reference Awards – Rachel Simon
* Rachel thanked all the committee members
* We had 6-7 reference works; gave award to the Comprehensive
Yiddish-English Dictionary - they will be joining us at the awards lunch
* Please send us nominations for awards!
* AJL International Liaison – David Hirsch
* Difficulty for international members is the English-only nature of
the organization
* We would like to support international chapters (such as Latin
America). David will be at the Latin American Jewish Studies Association
conference in Mexico - it’s every other year, but often conflicts with AJL or
ALA (next one in Buenos Aires)
* David spoke to Vanessa Freedman about a possible joint event for
the UK librarians.
* David is also pursuing potential activities in Israel
* France: Sara Yontan told David that most French librarians don’t
call themselves “Judaica” librarians (Yiddish; Hebraica)
* Amsterdam: Emile Schrijver referred David to the Rachels at the
Rosenthaliana
* Vilnius is another option for us.
* David will also be in touch with Brad Sabin Hill to talk about
international possibilities
* Russia: Contact at the Jewish Library in St. Petersberg
* Group in Germany/Austria/Hungary (Renate will send info)
* Q: What about IFLA? A: Large bureaucracy; Although David Gilner
presented there once. The Vilnius library was represented there.
* Q: What does “do something” mean? Have a panel/session at a
conference overseas; joint activity.
* Contact David for more info!
2. Old Business
* Update on last year’s idea for new AJL award – Rebecca Jefferson
3. New Business: possible points of discussion
* Call for a new ATLA Liaison
* World Congress of Jewish Studies Conference – ensuring AJL presence
* Finding alternative funding sources for AJL’s international attendees
* Do we need an RAS Division Listserv?
* Other ideas/questions?
4. Close meeting
* Nancy moved to adjourn; Rachel S. seconded, meeting closed at 11:59.
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