Library
Magic and Plundered Books
Rarely do I get reference questions that are
interesting enough to write about. This
week I had two and one of those I was the information seeker.
A senior
scholar asked about the word “abracadabra.”
She wanted to know the meaning.
She said that the word sounded like it was from Aramaic, but she couldn’t
find it in her Talmud dictionary or in the Talmud at all. She heard that the word meant, “he created as
he spoke.” This folk etymology explanation
is offered by the magician Steve Cohen in his book, Win the Crowd.[1]
Cohen is a magician, not a linguist and should have read the subtitle to his
book. I told the scholar that I wrote an
article on the topic in December 2002 and forwarded the link to her. You will have to read the whole article[2] to
understand that “abracadabra” is a magic word used by magicians to distract audiences.
I recently read the book, Book Thieves[3],
by Anders Rydell. I wrote a short review
for professional publication, AJL Reviews, but my interest in the topic
of stolen books was piqued. Rydell talks about millions of books that were confiscated
and destroyed by the Nazis and a few that made their way back to the owners or
their heirs. I will be writing a longer
article connected to the topic of the book.
Forever, my views on book ownership, the source of the books, and the de-acquisition
of library items are changed.
I
remembered when I was a student working in the Jewish Theological Seminary
Library we had thousands of books with the book plate from Jewish Cultural
Reconstruction. See illustration to the left. These were “ownerless” books from Europe that
were distributed to Jewish libraries and the Library of Congress mostly in the
United States and Israel. Since Rydell
wrote about the ownership records of books I wanted to know if the JTS library
had recorded which books were from Jewish Cultural Reconstruction.[4]
I searched
the term, “Jewish Cultural
Reconstruction” in their catalog and got more than 44,000 hits. This is way more than the 12,000 items the
JTS Library was supposed to have acquired.
I looked at the catalog records and found many had “Jewish Cultural
Reconstruction” in the added entry MARC field 710. There was no 500 note or
other field that would explain the reason for a 710 entry. I called the JTS Library reference desk. After explaining the catalog entry, the
reference librarian didn’t know the answer.
She had to consult with the catalogers.
I am waiting for the answers and will share them when I publish the full
article. The full article will have
example titles.
Formulating the
proper question is half-way to getting a good answer. I have students ask all the time for “a book.” It takes many questions to figure out what
they want. I am always amused at the
amount of words the students waste telling me the story of their life before
they get around to the question they need us to help them with.
Don’t you just
burn on the inside when some clueless administrator says, “Can’t a work-study
student do that?” Some of the librarians
have more degrees and years of study than the faculty and administrators.
Library collections are curated, selected and organized by experts; books don’t
appear on the shelves by magic. Just by using
the magic of abracadabra I cannot teach management, the
understanding of historical context, and critical analysis needed to run a
library. To answer many challenges that I see as routine, one must travel
around the sun many times and view each day as a learning opportunity.
[1] Win
the crowd : unlock the secrets of influence, charisma, and showmanship. New York : Collins, 2006, ©2005.
[2] Stuhlman,
Daniel D. “Abracadabra” Librarian’s
Lobby December 2002. http://home.earthlink.net/~ddstuhlman/crc55.htm
[3] The
Book Thieves : the Nazi looting of Europe’s libraries and the race to
return a literary heritage / Anders Rydell, translated by Hening Koch. New York
: Viking Press, 2017.
[4] I
had to check my personal collection for pre-war books from Europe. I found only three and I am certain they were
not plundered.
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