Report on the Visit to Libraries in Israel August
6-8, 2012
When I was planning a trip to Israel
for a family bar mitzvah, I want to do something that tourists wouldn’t
do. As a librarian I love to visit
libraries. On a visit to New York three
years ago, I visited a school librarian who was having difficulty with her
administration. Amazingly after my visit things changed for the better. I was given a task by my fellow librarians to
learn about how systems work in large research libraries and to gather
information to support the purchase of a new library management system. The CCC
district librarians were concerned about the relationships the libraries have
with the vendors of library management systems and sources of continuing training. All three libraries I visited use the Aleph
system was originally written by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Now it is part of the ExLibris family of
products which include Voyager and Alma.
All the Israeli Universities and the National Library use Aleph, though
they are not all on the same version.
The Israel National Library
The National Library [fn 1] and University libraries act as a
group for the purchase of database services and they co-operate in other areas
of common interest. During my visit I did not investigate all the areas of
co-operation. Each university is free to
choose its own classification system is very autonomous in most administrative
areas. There are college libraries in Israel that have their own system separate from the
universities.
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The entrance plaza to the
building. This looks exactly like it did
when I was a student at the Hebrew University, except the sign “Hebrew University” was removed.
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On August 6 I visited the National Library1 in the Givat
Ram neighborhood of Jerusalem [fn 2]. The
National Library (http://web.nli.org.il/sites/nli/english/Pages/default.aspx)
used to be part of the Hebrew University.
In 2008 they started the process of separation. The National Library Law of Jan 02, 2008
defined the new role of the library and regulates its status and
objectives. This law granted the
National Library independent legal status as of January 1, 2011, and extended
the National Library's responsibilities to include the documentation
of Israel's cultural oeuvre. By 2016 the
Library will have a new building outside of the Hebrew University Campus, but
in the same neighborhood. A generous
donor has agreed to pay for the building under the condition that the government
maintains and pays for the staff and other continuing expenses. (see: The National Library of Israel: Master
Plan for Renewal 2010-2016: http://web.nli.org.il/sites/NLI/English/library/aboutus/future/Documents/Tochnit_Av_Final.pdf)
The major collections of the National Library include
Judaica, Islam and the Middle East, Israel,
science, geography, and the Humanities.
As the nation’s library, the Book Law of 2000 stipulates they get
deposit copies of all materials print and non-print published in Israel. The
program is under the supervision of Legal Deposit Department. Legal deposit is
required whether or not there is a formal copyright application3. For more
information see their web site: http://www.jnul.huji.ac.il/eng/lgd.html. As with Library of Congress and other
national libraries this is a way to preserve the nation’s literary output. The collection has about 5 million
items. They are working hard to digitize
their music, rare book, and manuscript collections. As a national library they are showing
leadership for the libraries of Israel.
They prepare digital exhibits for browsing on the web and exhibits on
the premises. Like the Library of
Congress, the National Library promotes the use of original sources in the
classroom, sponsor lectures and other cultural events, and has an active
preservation program. Some of the
materials are stored off site for cost saving and security purposes. The National Library creates several
databases including RAMBI (http://jnul.huji.ac.il/rambi/ for Jewish studies
articles) and Kiryat Sefer,
(http://web.nli.org.il/sites/NLI/English/infochannels/Catalogs/bibliographic-databases/Pages/qsefer.aspx) the national bibliography of the State of
Israel and the Jewish people. These are
free databases searchable on the Internet.
I met with the head of cataloging, Rini Goldsmith and
Esther Guggenheim, the Bibliographic Systems Librarian. We had a very nice discussion about their
library and how they work with systems.
Esther has been working with Aleph for about 9 years and has an intimate
knowledge of the how the systems work.
Rini is very knowledgeable about all aspects of cataloging and technical
processing. The Hebrew
University/National Library was among the first Aleph libraries.
They are currently in the implementation phase of Ex
Libris' discovery tool Primo, which will is also an integral component of Alma.
They have been using Digitool for digital resources for the past few years but
will replace it in the near future. All of these programs are on library
servers and fully maintained by their staff.
They have SFX as link resolver; however it is hosted by ExLibris.
All the libraries in Israel have to deal with multiple
scripts, Hebrew, Arabic, Latin and Cyrillic.
Subject searching is still mostly in English using Library of Congress
Subject Headings. However, Bar Ilan has
a Hebrew Language version of Library of Congress Subject headings that they use
for Hebrew books and may eventually use it for parallel headings for materials
other languages. Since Alma does not
yet support Hebrew and Arabic, Israeli libraries have not yet started to test
it. They are in contact with ExLibris
concerning the development of Hebrew support.
I toured the building which is an interesting combination
of new up-to-date rooms, areas under renovation, and rooms that haven’t changed
in 40 years.
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Part of the reference collection in the Jewish Studies Reading Room.
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| Large books in the cartographic collection |
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The reading room for the history of science collection.
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| Rare Book room closed shelves |
One concern of our committee was training and ongoing
support. The National Library has their
own IT department. They were able to
hire a couple of former ExLibris technical people for their staff. They can use some of this intimate knowledge
of the system. That means they can get
the system to do pretty much what they want.
ExLibris is responsive to the needs of its customers and if a feature is
helpful to many customers, they will create it.
If the feature has only a local need, the library may need to pay for
development. Since Aleph has more than
700 customers the voice of Israeli libraries is smaller the time they were the
only customers. ExLibris offers several
kinds of support including initial training, newsletters, users groups,
conferences, etc. While our committee is
concerned about initial training and training for new users, Rini and Esther pointed out that because of
the significant amount of options and choices a library makes, each library
will have to train their staff in local practices and procedures.
Bar Ilan University
August 7
On the morning of August 7 I took a bus from Jerusalem to
the Tel Aviv suburb of Ramat Gan to visit the Wurzweiler Central Library, of
Bar Ilan University.
(http://lib.biu.ac.il/en/page/3) Bar Ilan is a comprehensive university
with a main campus in in Ramat Gan and regional colleges in Jerusalem, Safad, Ashkelon, Acre, and Bnei Brak. They have more than 32,000 undergraduate and
graduate students, 2700 faculty members, and 24 libraries.. I met with Chaim
Seymour, the head of cataloging. Bar
Ilan University departmental libraries and research centers have all their
collections cataloged in the central library.
The law library is cataloged and operates independently of the central
library. Security for the University is
very strict. At the gate I had to show
my passport. My Illinois State ID and
Malcolm X College ID were not sufficient for Bar Ilan, but ok for The Hebrew
University campus. Briefcases, purses and other bags are also subject to
search. I had to show ID again to enter
the library.
Since Bar Ilan is a major research university their
purpose is different than the National Library.
They have about 1 million items in their collections in every discipline
taught by the University. Bar Ilan is
deemed a religious oriented university and so they have a special interest in
Jewish studies [fn 4] materials and how they are used. Bar Ilan uses a variation of Dewey Decimal
Classification Dewey called Scholem (which was named after the first Head
Librarian of The Hebrew University/National Library, (Gresham Scholem). This system revised the 296 numbers to
accommodate the Jewish studies materials [fn 5].
In contrast the National Library once used Scholem
classification and now uses Library of Congress classification.
Half the visit was smoozing about library procedures and
sharing some common interests. Bar Ilan
as a university shares some of the same fiscal limitations that we have. They can’t afford to buy all the books they
want. Their costs are much higher
because they are outside of the United States.
Science books are particularily costly.
One problem they share is computer access. Their department got new computers. The labeling program was on an old
computer. A month later they are still
waiting for the IT department to transfer the program to a new computer. I was also taken on a tour of the building
and met with the head of the library, Rochelle Kedar. She, like other administrators, is concerned
with staffing, resources, and other juggling acts to keep the library running.
Back in Jerusalem I talked with a retired Bar Ilan
professor. He said the library is not
open enough hours. Commuter students who
want to study late, avoid heavy traffic, and go home after doing their home
work were out of luck The professor said
that after the tremendous investment in
the collecting and cataloging of materials, the staffing to keep the central
and departmental libraries open should be minimal. Since he told me that after my visit I did
not ask the people at Bar Ilan about this.
The web site: http://lib.biu.ac.il/en/libraries has their hours. Notice most libraries close before 7 pm. I asked another current profession and he
said no one ever complained to him about the limited hours.
After eating lunch I headed to the campus of Tel Aviv
University to visit the Museum of the Jewish People (http://www.bh.org.il/) I didn’t meet with any of their staff, but I
want to share this picture. It is Torah
scroll unrolled. I don’t know why they
did this, but this is not the best way to preserve a parchment scroll. You can
see the wrinkles.
After the Museum I headed to the train station to travel
to Haifa.
University of Haifa Library August 8
In 2006 the University of Haifa Library
(http://lib.haifa.ac.il/english/index.php/about-the-library)
was awarded a grant by the Ima Foundation to renovate the existing library and to build
a new three-story wing. The building was
completed in 2011. The new wing now houses offices and study rooms. This enabled the previous office space to be
repurposed for information common areas and to move around the stack
areas. The library took on the name of
the donors, Younes and Soraya Nazarian [fn 6].
The library has more than 3 million items, the largest holdings of any
academic library in Israel and serves a diverse population of Jews, Christians,
and Arabs. The University of Haifa is
much more secular and diverse than other universities in Israel.
The way they use space is beautiful. The library looks very open and
inviting. Staff office areas include
meeting rooms with computers and digital projectors, kitchen/break rooms, and
study rooms for faculty and students.
They use Library of Congress Classification except for Hebrew
periodicals. They add an “X” before the
letters of the class for Hebrew periodicals so that all the Hebrew periodicals
are separated from other languages.
I met with Yosef Branse, Database and Programming
Coordinator and two others in the cataloging department.
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Information commons area.
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| Stack area |
General comments
One of the significant challenges they face is getting
new librarians. The library school of
The Hebrew University closed. Bar Ilan
University has a department of Information Studies that grants, BA, MA and PhD
degrees [fn 7]. There are programs for school librarians
at David Yellin College of Education and Bet Berl (http://www.beitberl.ac.il/english/Pages/TheAcademicProgram.aspx). If someone from Israel wants other kinds of
library education they would either have to enroll in an online program or
travel abroad.
The libraries are tuned into all the concerns that we
have here such as space, fiscal limitations, and support. Their computer infrastructure is very
robust. They have Wi-Fi throughout the
campuses and offer on-campus and off-campus access to databases. Security is very strict on all
campuses. If you remember on July 21,
2002, nine people (four from the United States) were killed and 85 injured in
an attack on the cafeteria of Hebrew University
http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2002/7/Terrorist+bombing+at+Hebrew+University+cafeteria+-.htm) . Hopefully we never have any
problems like that. We do have to be
concerned about other kinds of security.
The people I met with were very friendly and willing to
share their knowledge and expertise. It
helped to visit during the summer when the pressure of students and faculty was
low. I met these people through the
listserv HaSafran. While this is the
first time I met them in person, I have met them “online” and felt I was meeting
with friends. This is the kind of
exchange of ideas that cannot take the place of a convention or
conference. I hope that I am able to
return the favor if we have international guests. It was very worthwhile to visit these
libraries and I hope we continue to share our knowledge and expertise.
This is the library in the Museum of Underground
Fighters. During the British Mandatory
period this was the Central Jerusalem Prison.
This was the prisoner’s library.
The sign says that if you want to open the door, return to the museum
office. I was not able to visit this library.
This is a view from 10 miles to the north of Haifa. The arrow points to the 30 story tower on the University of Haifa Campus. The distance by highway is about 23 miles.
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Footnotes
1 The current building dates from 1960. The library was established by Eliezer Ben Yehudah in 1892.
2 Many other
cultural and government institutions are in this neighborhood including: The
Knesset, Israeli government offices, Israeli Supreme Court , Israel
Museum, Bible Lands Museum, and Bloomfield Science Museum, .
3 The Israeli copyright law of 2007
(http://www.tau.ac.il/law/members/birnhack/IsraeliCopyrightAct2007.pdf) is almost the same as the American copyright
law because of international treaties.
4 They claim to have the most Jewish studies faculty of
any academic institution.
5 For more information about the Sholem 296 extensions
visit:
http://jec2.chez.com/librarie.htm#Scholem
6 They are Jews from Iran who moved to Los Angeles in
1976.
7 See
http://is.biu.ac.il/en/node/1149 for more information. The program teach several kinds of
information professionals including librarians and knowledge managers.
All pictures were taken by the author.
All pictures were taken by the author.
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