The project Hebraica and Jewish Studies: a collaborative retrospective conversion programme, has adopted the acronym RESHET for its project title which in Hebrew means network. This encapsulates the aim of the project which is to make a significant contribution to the Distributed National Electronic Resource in the areas of Hebrew and Jewish Studies. This will be achieved by ensuring that catalogues of the major research collections are accessible online in machine-readable form. The records for Hebrew, Yiddish and Ladino material will contain both Hebrew script and its romanised (transliterated) equivalent. This project will ensure that item level access to the largest collections is delivered to scholars. The collections of the partner libraries combine range and depth of research holdings with geographical spread across the country. The project comprises retrospective conversion of some 150,000 items, carried out over a two-year period.
The project spent the first months defining its standards and examining the date and subject ranges of the collections for areas of collaboration. Two project partners have chosen to use contractors to undertake the major part of the retroconversion work and the other partners are doing the work in house. It did not prove possible to organise one contract for all the partners.
The subject areas covered embrace all historical periods - from biblical to the present day. Material in Yiddish from the 19th and 20th century is particularly extensive in this country including rare and unique items. The subject areas covered, namely, biblical studies, medieval and modern Jewish culture, particularly studies of the Jewish communities and their literature, in Europe and under Islam, are significant as they impact on and illuminate European and Islamic civilisation as a whole, and embrace research activity across many disciplines. The collections in Hebrew (based on test-sampling) indicate that the partners have over 5000 items published before 1700, including over 100 incunabula, and over 6000 items from the eighteenth century for which they need to create records.
The material, which will have entries in Hebrew script, will be catalogued on the RLIN database of RLG and downloaded to the respective library catalogues and COPAC in due course. Tests have indicated that there will be a reasonably high level of matching records in the RLIN database, although not all of these will also have entries for Hebrew script in the records. Some partners have systems that can already display Hebrew script; others will mount their records in romanised form until they are able to display script in their own catalogues. Researchers will be able to search for these records on RLIN’s Eureka database, which has a new windows-based interface. European language material for Jewish studies will be handled locally and be entered in the COPAC database in due course.
Machine-readable records for 150,000 items of Hebrew and Jewish studies accessible via COPAC or the individual catalogues of partners. Hebrew, Yiddish and Ladino records with parallel fields in Hebrew script accessible either via Eureka or the individual library catalogues and in due course available from COPAC.
A website is in preparation and details will be available at the dissemination event. It will contain the documentation of the project, minutes of project meetings and management board meetings and the standards adopted for the project. The project will maintain a closed email list for discussion of matters related to the project by the partners.
Project Director
Mr Keith WebsterContent: Gill Davenport
Last updated 3 July 2002