Toward the end of the Junior Fellows program at the Library of Congress, fellows participate in a "display day," which is described below:
Display Day represents an opportunity to present and discuss your project accomplishments and to promote access to significant Library collections and services. The Junior Fellows program work is in direct service to the Library’s core mission of acquiring, preserving, and making accessible its collections and resources. The Fellows’ contributions help fulfill the Library’s mission “to support the Congress in fulfilling its constitutional duties and to further the progress of knowledge and creativity for the benefit of the American people.” The Display will be open to Library staff, press, Members of Congress, the James Madison Council, and the general public.
In late June, I will have a general "Display consultation" with the display coordinators and my mentor to discuss general ideas and goals for my display. This is meant to be a brainstorming meeting, though we have been encouraged from the first week to keep our eyes open for interesting items that we might like to display.
Here are some questions to consider that may help me prepare for this first meeting:
What is the story behind your project?
I am working to catalog part of a Yiddish book collection that has not yet been cataloged. Last summer, a Junior Fellow went through the collection, organized it, and created a finding aid for the collection, which has been very helpful for my part of the work.
Parts of this collection have been sitting on the shelves, unprocessed, for over 100 years. Many items in this collection can be traced to Jacob H. Schiff's gift in 1912 of nearly 10,000 books and pamphlets from the private collection of Ephraim Deinard, a well-known bibliographer and bookseller.
What is the goal of the project?
The goal of the project is to move one step closer to making this collection accessible to the public by creating bibliographic records for the LC catalog. In many cases, I am adding a first copy of a work to the LC Hebraic collection, but in some cases I am adding a second copy or sending third and fourth copies to other institutions.
What are some engaging collection items or elements (ideas, equipment, etc.) that can help explain your project, in an informative and attractive way?
Illustrated children's books and periodicals for young readers from early 20th century Eastern Europe -- demonstrates the growth of Yiddish in literature, arts, culture and secular education in the years leading up to the second world war.
Salon-flirt parlor game, published in Yiddish - Warsaw 1919
The cataloging side -- challenges of Romanization, pronunciation, and spelling in Hebrew and varied Yiddish dialects, depending on time and place. Also, pseudonyms and identifying illustrators by style and characteristic markings.
What is the significance of your project? To you, to your division, to the Library, to various audiences?
For me -- this project is a dream, as it melds my learning of Yiddish language and culture with technical cataloging skills. It's a pleasure to spend time with a wide variety of subjects, texts, and objects that reflect a rich culture of interest to me. I am also deeply grateful for the time and energy that my mentors have invested in my learning here.
For the library and my division --
For others; researchers and the general public --
What is the message you want to convey to the audience about it?
I hope to share a message about history of the items and how they reflect a blossoming period of Yiddish culture and language in Eastern Europe and the US. I would also like to share some of the technical aspects and challenges of the cataloging process, as this is the core of the project.
What do you want people to learn and remember from your Display?
For those who don't know much or anything about Yiddish, I'd like to provide some basic background on the language and culture, focusing especially on the 19th and 20th centuries. From there, I'd like for visitors to walk away from the display with a sense of the strong and interconnected nature of the Yiddish arts, literature, and education movement of this period.
Display Day represents an opportunity to present and discuss your project accomplishments and to promote access to significant Library collections and services. The Junior Fellows program work is in direct service to the Library’s core mission of acquiring, preserving, and making accessible its collections and resources. The Fellows’ contributions help fulfill the Library’s mission “to support the Congress in fulfilling its constitutional duties and to further the progress of knowledge and creativity for the benefit of the American people.” The Display will be open to Library staff, press, Members of Congress, the James Madison Council, and the general public.
In late June, I will have a general "Display consultation" with the display coordinators and my mentor to discuss general ideas and goals for my display. This is meant to be a brainstorming meeting, though we have been encouraged from the first week to keep our eyes open for interesting items that we might like to display.
Here are some questions to consider that may help me prepare for this first meeting:
What is the story behind your project?
I am working to catalog part of a Yiddish book collection that has not yet been cataloged. Last summer, a Junior Fellow went through the collection, organized it, and created a finding aid for the collection, which has been very helpful for my part of the work.
Parts of this collection have been sitting on the shelves, unprocessed, for over 100 years. Many items in this collection can be traced to Jacob H. Schiff's gift in 1912 of nearly 10,000 books and pamphlets from the private collection of Ephraim Deinard, a well-known bibliographer and bookseller.
What is the goal of the project?
The goal of the project is to move one step closer to making this collection accessible to the public by creating bibliographic records for the LC catalog. In many cases, I am adding a first copy of a work to the LC Hebraic collection, but in some cases I am adding a second copy or sending third and fourth copies to other institutions.
What are some engaging collection items or elements (ideas, equipment, etc.) that can help explain your project, in an informative and attractive way?
Illustrated children's books and periodicals for young readers from early 20th century Eastern Europe -- demonstrates the growth of Yiddish in literature, arts, culture and secular education in the years leading up to the second world war.
Salon-flirt parlor game, published in Yiddish - Warsaw 1919
The cataloging side -- challenges of Romanization, pronunciation, and spelling in Hebrew and varied Yiddish dialects, depending on time and place. Also, pseudonyms and identifying illustrators by style and characteristic markings.
What is the significance of your project? To you, to your division, to the Library, to various audiences?
For me -- this project is a dream, as it melds my learning of Yiddish language and culture with technical cataloging skills. It's a pleasure to spend time with a wide variety of subjects, texts, and objects that reflect a rich culture of interest to me. I am also deeply grateful for the time and energy that my mentors have invested in my learning here.
For the library and my division --
For others; researchers and the general public --
What is the message you want to convey to the audience about it?
I hope to share a message about history of the items and how they reflect a blossoming period of Yiddish culture and language in Eastern Europe and the US. I would also like to share some of the technical aspects and challenges of the cataloging process, as this is the core of the project.
What do you want people to learn and remember from your Display?
For those who don't know much or anything about Yiddish, I'd like to provide some basic background on the language and culture, focusing especially on the 19th and 20th centuries. From there, I'd like for visitors to walk away from the display with a sense of the strong and interconnected nature of the Yiddish arts, literature, and education movement of this period.
Comments
Post a Comment