Summer Break

I am not taking a summer break from learning or teaching. Today I started teaching two 7 week courses. One is in managing a school library/media center and the other is in science and technology literature. Next week is the Association of Jewish Libraries annual conference and it will be meeting in Chicago. I will have to go to part of that especially since I will be the MC at the awards luncheon. I'm already thinking of funny stories to keep the banter going.

My Librarian's Lobby column will take a summer break while I'm teaching.

Untitled Art Works

A visit to the Art Institute of Chicago inspired this article. It is meant to be a parody of an art critique and poke fun at artists who do not title their work. Except for Chaim Potok’s fictional character Asher Lev, all the names, bibliographic items, and art works are products of my imagination.

In the cataloging of books and most other published library materials the author and title are very important in the identification of a work. The title page is what the publisher wants the world to know about identifying the work. When we saw many untitled works at the Art Institute many questions popped into mind about the cataloging of these items.

In a museum collection every object is given a unique identification number, but these numbers are internally generated and have nothing to do with bibliographic description.


Coby D’Artist was born Ya’akov Artovsky, in Brooklyn, NY. He grew up in the Williamsburg neighborhood, where he first heard of the work of Asher Lev. He had a traditional yeshiva education, but always loved to draw. His first works were views of life in his neighborhood. In 2008 his work turned to the more abstract and the current exhibition in the Chiganmi Art Museum. Early in 2009 the museum warned us the exhibition would be strange and wonderful. The works would show us a new side of D’Artist that would cause us to think, wonder and be excited. The exhibition does not disappoint us.

As a tease for this exhibition individual works were on display in the entrance gallery. After one week they were moved gallery 199 on the first floor. The gallery and full exhibition were closed until May 31. The entrance gallery is a busy exhibition space. The revolving door traffic, the shuffle of the crowds, and the constant interruptions, make contemplative examination of the works difficult. But D’Artist’s work is so absorbing, distractions are moot. People stopped and looked at the works and wondered. Mysterious thoughts filled the air as people discussed the individual works without seeing or understanding the context of rest of the art. People asked, is this art a figment of the paranoid protagonist's imagination or part of a complex plan that comes from the trained mind of a Talmudic scholar? The works start out as simple and flow to the complex.


The problem I have in describing the works is that they are all lacking titles. Obviously D”Artist never consulted me for ideas for titles. Usually a museum can list the works by artist and date, but all the works are by the same artist done in 2008. Luckily we know the month they were completed.

Like his earlier works, "Untitled" [1] starts out simple. It is two blue shapes in the upper portion of the canvas. Is this a diagram or does it represent the coldness of winter? This roundish, blob could represent some sort of circle that has irregular borders. The intensity of the blue softens to a blur on the edges. Some people claim the shapes reminds them of blueberries.



"Utitled" [2] could represent spring. D’Artist could be making a reference to the green served at the Passover Seder because this looks like a stalk of Romaine lettuce. The green background is the sprint growth of grass. The jagged edge represents the sleepless nights. I overheard one critic say it was a salami sandwich waiting to happen.


"Untitled" [3] is two-dimensional storytelling with words that are created in the eyes of the viewer. The feeling is in each drop of color; they're aesthetically pleasing yet fascinating, but the actual ploy is hard to verbalize. The yellow represents summer sun.

"Untitled" [4] is the most complicated of all the works. The two red dots at the bottom represent the fall season, but they are not parallel to the edge. The splash of yellow and red are the color of the leaves changing. The blank areas on all the works is reminds the viewer of God as the creator of all. As a group they are hard to talk about because they are not titled.

Call the museum or visit their web site for hours and visitors’ information.

Bibliography

Amanut, Munhe. Life and work of Asher Lev. New York : Morningside University Press, 2008.

D’Artist, Coby, 1972- [Untitled] completed Feb. 1, 2008. 24" x 46" latex on canvas. Acquisition number 2008-9734. Purchased from the artist on Jan. 3, 2009

D’Artist, Coby, 1972- [Untitled] completed April 4, 2008. 24" x 46" latex on canvas. Acquisition number 2008-9735. Purchased from the artist on Jan. 3, 2009.

D’Artist, Coby, 1972- [Untitled] completed June 14, 2008. 24" x 46" latex on canvas. Acquisition number 2008-9736. Purchased from the artist on Jan. 3, 2009.

D’Artist, Coby, 1972- [Untitled] completed September 30, 2008. 24" x 46" latex on canvas. Acquisition number 2008-9737. Purchased from the artist on Jan. 3, 2009.

Driver, Solomon. "Coby D'Artist: conceptual art exhibition, April 30, 2000" in New York Art, May 3, 2000. p. 12-17.

Potok, Yoseff. The legacy of Asher Lev. New York: Fifth Ave Press, 2007.

Zemanim, Iyar. The four seasons in art. New York : Morningside University Press, 1975.

Copyright 2008 by Daniel D. Stuhlman; the paintings are copyrighted by Coby D'Artist.
All artwork is this article was photographed by the author with the artist's permission.

Visting the Chicago Art Institute

On May 17 the Chicago Art Institute opened its new modern wing, an expansion that increased display space by about 30%. In honor of this occasion they offered free admission for the week. My son and I went to visit on different days and compared notes. He asked how does one catalog art that has no title. I said by the artist's name. Then I got to thinking that the name was not enough and so I asked my fellow catalogers via Autocat how it is done. Since cataloging art is so different from cataloging books, published media or even manuscripts all sorts of ideas ran through my mind. I decided to create an imaginary and humorous review of some untitled art works complete with a full bibliographic description of each work and fictional reference works. Watch this space for the finished article.

Visit to the Illinois Holocaust Museum

On Sunday (May 10) my son and I went to the Illinois Holocaust Museum. The building is very impressive. On the left is a picture of the back. Strange, this is the street side with the name on the wall. The entrance is on the side away from the street. Before entering they make you walk through a metal detector. The guard at the entrance told us that no photography was allowed, but there are no posted signs. It bothers me that a museum dedicated to remembering does not allow me to take pictures to remember my visit. They don't have many artifacts. Most of the floor space is taken by video screens, photographs, and printed information. A long time ago people thought that flash pictures would harm museum artifacts. This has been proven to be inconsequential. The amount of light from electronic flashes is so brief that it would take thousands to equal the background light. If there were a lot of flashes it could bother other visitors, but the museum was not very crowded.

Is any one else bothered by the prohibition on taking pictures?

This Week in Reference

Here are some happenings from this past week. They are presented to inform and amuse. The names of the people are changed to protect their privacy.

LD = Library Director FM = Faculty member ST = Student

1. The library was co-operating with the history department's Civil War re-enactment. The library had a film festival of films dealing with the Civil War era, books displayed connected to the era, and some realia on display. There was a quiz for patrons. If they answered all the questions correctly they could win prizes. FM-1 came in and asked for a quiz sheet FM-1 has a very rough temperament. FM-1 wanted to know if the answers could be looked up. We said go ahead and look them up. Two hours later she returned in a huff. "Where's LD?" she demanded. When I said in a very calm voice that he had left for the day and asked if I could help her. FM-1 answered gruffly, "I just wanted to turn this quiz in. I want to make sure it gets into the right place." I said that I would be happy to take care of that. Now-- any of the student library helpers could have placed the quiz in the right envelope. It was not a job for LD.

When I told LD about the incident without mentioning FM-1's name, he guessed immediatly the name. He said that other people have pointed out anomolies in FM-1's behavior.

2. A faculty member FM-2 asked for help determining if a student paper contained sentences that were not original i.e. was part of the paper plagerized? First I checked the bibliography. The book listed did not exist as listed. There was a similar title by the same author. In my opinion this is a serious error, but FM-2 didn't agree with my strong opinion. I found with GoogleBooks the listed item. I checked for copying of sentences and I didn't find any. While I don't know the student, the sentences on the paper just did not seem to come from a contemporary college student. However, we did not find any evidence of plagerism.

3. ST-1 came in with a question about murder statistics for Illinois. The FBI keeps such statistics. We found a web site with historical statistics for Illinois cities with the latest date of 2006. We also found that Illinois reports every single homicide on a web site. With this information ST-1 could synthecize the information that she wanted for her paper.

4. ST-2 wanted help looking up CFRs for something her father wanted to know. First I had to learn that CFR is the Code of Federal Regulations. We found all of the CFR online at: http://www.access.gpo.gov/nara/cfr/cfr-table-search.html. After further questions I determined that ST-2 wanted Title 21. I gave her the links and told her that I hoped this is what her father wanted. ST-2 couldn't believe how easy it was to find the answer on line. She said that her father (aged three years older than me) was not very skilled at using the computer because he was "older." I said that age is not the reason. I was using personal computers for 12 years before my first child was born. (For those of you who are counting-- that is 2 years before IBM started selling the PC.)

Names and reactions

I have gotten many nice comments about the Librarian's Lobby article for May. In fact as of today more than 813 people have downloaded the file. This is about 4 times the average number of downloads. Some people pointed out areas that they disagreed with me. One people told me that I missed one letter in a footnote. The word was not really misspelled, but it was alternative spelling. Now I know people really pay attention. Some people gave alternative explanations for names. In particular, the name Jessica. "Jessica" was a name Shakespeare used in the Merchant of Venice. It is possible that he coined the name. Rabbi Joseph H. Hertz in his commentary on Genesis 11:29 says that Iscah יסכה is the basis for Shakespeare's "Jessica." Others say the source is the feminine for of Yeshai ישי (Jesse in English). Both make sense linguistically. So far I have not found any way to verify what Shakespeare had in mind. I did not find any listing of the name before Shakespeare. I did find hundreds of names from what is now Great Britain that have not been used in more than 500 years. Most names that pre-date the Norman Conquest are not used.

Parents are free to choose any names they want. They may even invent their own meanings. When that is done they create folk etymologies. These etymologies are not usually connected to a linguistic etymology. One commenter suggested that name "Simha Bunim" is from a play on words, based on Psalm 113 which ends "He transforms the barren wife into a glad mother of children [em habanim smeicha], halleluyah". The commenter says, "With a little imagination, you change the reading of em habanim smeicha to 'the mother of Simcha Bunim.'"

Names transform for one language to another because of the way each language deals with phonemes. Written letters both consonants and vowels have different sounds. There is even a regional difference within one country or language tradition. When words are borrowed among languages the word may take on a meaning that is exactly the same, more general, or more specific meaning. For example: in German Tier means animal. The cognate in English is: deer is an example of the general becoming specific. Wolf is the same in both languages.

Names also follow fads. Jews have followed these fads somewhat. There are certain names that are more associated with Jews just as there are some names more associated with other ethic groups. There were hundreds of years that Biblical names were rare. Today in Christian and Jewish families Biblical names are used. Even names very English sounding names like Elizabeth and Jessica are from Hebrew roots. There are many names in from the Bible that are not used. Some like Esau and Ismael are used by non-Jews. Some like, Terah, Cain, and Lot are just not used.

May Librarian's Lobby

On April 15 someone on AUTOCAT asked about the transliteration of Gotlib, Zeev and found a NAF reference to : Gottlieb, Wolf, 1910-. At the time I answered that I was preparing an article that addressed the question.

The article that I was preparing on Hebrew-Yiddish name pairs is done. Ze'ev--Wolf is one of those pairs. This article will help the reader understand more about names. Over half of the popular given names are from Hebrew sources, but the English spelling and pronunciation is filtered through the Greek Bible translation. For example the Hebrew Shmuel becomes Samuel in English because Greek does not have an /sh/ sound. Greek used the letter sigma to represent the Hebrew letter shin. In English "sh" is a digraph (two letters for one sound).

The article has implications for catalogers and others interested in names. I gave examples of authors who had books in a library catalog. Not every name had an author.

You may download the article from my web site. http://home.earthlink.net/~ddstuhlman/crc105.pdf

Please feel free to comment as I able to revise it before it is published in a scholarly journal.

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April 24

I received many favorable comments on the article. One person named his son Simha Bunim and had no idea that was a name pair.

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Comment from :Jill Rosenshield, University of Wisconsin--Madison Library. Included here with her permission.

I very much enjoyed your article on double names. We named our first son Simcha Velvel after his late grandpa; but he had a plaque made for his room Simcha Zev because we thought we had mixed Hebrew and Yiddish. Maybe we should have gone the other way and named him Zelig Velvel.

Incidentally, I have always been puzzled by two forenames: I was raised as a fundamentalist Christian and had relatives who criticized the practice because they said it was Roman Catholic. I think Catholics get a second middle name on some day such as Holy Communion. [Stuhlman comment -- I checked about this Catholic practice. Many Catholics get an additional name at confirmation. This is in addition to the names given by parents. Some confirmands use the additional name and some don't.]

Of course, now that there are so many people and so many shared surnames, there is probably a very good reason to give several forenames. I should talk: Rosenshield is a very rare name in its spelling.