Translation of Shofar

I finished the article, "The Translation of Shofar" for my Librarian's Lobby column. It may be downloaded from : http://home.earthlink.net/~ddstuhlman/crc109.pdf. Enjoy.

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Comment received from Alan Corre, emeritus professor of Hebrew Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Thank you for the article on the shofar which I found very interesting.
It is quite delightful the way the Web spurs this kind of activity.

This week in Reference -- It's only Wednesday

It's only Wednesday and already we had some questions that are worthy of a "special award." Some teachers still do not understand the nature of scholarly research in today's libraries. While I won over one holdout last semester, today a fellow librarian reports that one teacher told his students that not only can't they use the Internet, they can only use books published by professional associations. Doesn't the teacher know that many publishers including commercial publishers and university presses publish scholarly materials? In my introduction to the library I make a point of telling students part of scholarly research is learning to judge a source critically. The fact that it appears on a personal web site does not mean it is good or not good. The fact that ABC Publisher publishes the book does not mean all the facts and conclusion are correct. The students using multiple sources and their sehel (common sense) need to figure out what is realizable.

A staff member (call her L) from the computer support group came to the circulation desk. L went to high school with the head of circulation (HC). L asked in a very raspy demanding tone of voice, "Would you get me a drink of water? I don't think I have enough energy to walk to the drinking fountain. I don't want to die in the library." After HC gave L the water L said, "I feel much better. I think the flowers at my desk are making me sick. I told my department to drag me outside if I collapse so I won't die at my desk."

A student came and asked for help finding issues of National Geographic. She thought NG would have information about "black smokers." In the course of the interview she said the information was her 7th grade daughter. I was puzzled as to why she thought NG would have articles on smokers. I went to ProQuest and searched "black smokers" and found too many hits. I thought she was looking for Afro-Americans who smoke tobacco because I know the rate of smokers is higher among Afro-Americans and whites. Since this was for a 7th grader I suggested first looking in an encyclopedia for a general article. We tried Wikipedia and got an immediate hit. The article, "black smoker" is about hydro -thermal vents. The student said, "Great! That is exactly what we needed." I guess I was lucky. I found the right answer by dumb luck.

Bibliographic Citations

Much of the work of reference librarians involves bibliographic citations. We instruct student how to create them and we use them to find books and articles. Quite accidentally I came across some articles that quoted me. I am flattered by the fact they learned something about knowledge from me, but I want the correct citation. The quotes were appropriate and in context, however, they got the citation wrong. The authors did not copy the correct title to the article.

Here is one example that occurred 9 times in one document.

Stuhlman Management Consultants. Knowledge management terms.
http://home.earthlink.net/~ddstuhlman/defin1.htm

The correct citation should have been

Stuhlman, Daniel. Knowledge management terms. Chicago, Stuhlman Management Consultants, c2009. Retrieved from http://home.earthlink.net/~ddstuhlman/defin1.htm March xx, 2010.

I will change the heading of that web page and include a sample citation to make this more clear.

This week in reference

We are close to the half-way point for this semester. Teachers are asking for class orientations. Mostly this is done for English 101 or 102 classes, but any teacher may ask for help. Next week is orientation for legal literature. Sometimes teachers frustrate us and never ask for help. They give mis-information or confusing information to their students about what is available in the library and we have to figure out how to best help their students.

Three years ago one of these teachers told her classes, "Don't use the Internet!!!" We had to tell the students that use of the periodical data bases gives the same articles as found in the print versions. I am pleased to report that after three years, this teacher finally came to the library in the fall of 2009 and asked for help. In the past two weeks I have done 4 orientations for her English 102 classes. She is now working with the librarians to get the students the information they need for their class. The English classes teach the students about research and analysis that transfers to the other subjects.

There are a few questions that I have about students. These questions are for your amusement; they are half-serious. 1) In the computer lab the temperature gets warm even in the winter. At times I remove my suit coat because of the heat. Why do some students keep on their coats while others dress as if it is summer? 2) Common courtesy should indicate to the students to put away their phones and turn them off. Why did one student need two requests to turn off her phone? The phone rang twice within a five minute period. 3) Why does the student I asked to help with presenting sites on the big screen need to send text messages during the presentation? 4) Why is one person so willing to pay the cost of a text message and another complains about losing 10 cents because of a printing error on their part? (The printer did what the student requested, but not what was wanted.) 5) Why can students standing 10 feet from a sign written in 4 inch letters still not notice?

We are asking students to fill out surveys about the library experience. One student thanked me by name for helping her understand how to do the research for her paper. At least one person listened this week and documented it.

Difficulty in Translation "Shofar"

In H-Judaic a listserv for Jewish studies, someone asked about the translation of "shofar" as used in the Tanach.

There is a difficulty because words have connotations and associations that change over time. One can explain a word based on it usage in context and etymology, but sometimes current usage interferes with that meaning. The person asked why Jewish translations use "horn" most of the time while non-Jewish translations all use "trumpet."

In a modern band or orchestra trumpets and its cousin the cornet have valves that enable a full chromatic scale. Before valves were added in the mid 1830's the players used several trumpets in the keys the music required or used variable tubes. Trumpets trace their roots back as far as 1500 BCE. Bronze and silver trumpets were found in Egyptian tombs. ("The Trumpets of Tut-Ankh-Amen and Their Successors Percival" by R. Kirby in The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 77, No. 1 (1947), pp. 33-45 ) A definition of a modern trumpet would be a metal instrument that uses lip vibrations to produce a variety of sounds. Thus horns from animals, bamboo, reeds, and shells would not qualify.

The word, "shofar" in the Tanach may refer to a metal instrument or an animal horn. There is another word, hotzotzerah, that is never used as a ritual instrument and was most likely made of silver. Ritually we only use horns from kosher animals. Thus today, "shofar" only refers to a ritual instrument.

Job 39.24-25 is talking about a battle. It does surprise me that the word "trumpet" is the translation.

Cyrus Adler in the article, "Shofar" in the Jewish Encyclopedia (http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=653&letter=S_) claims "trumpet" is a mistranslation according to the words' etymologies. Adler did not know Howard Carter's discoveries in Egyptian tombs in the 1920's.

In my humble opinion when the Tanach is referring to a horn used by soldiers, "trumpet" is an adequate translation. However, in modern usage, "trumpet" has very little resemblance to that kind of military horn. If you were translating according to how the instrument is used, "military bugle" would be more correct, but no one would use that translation. "Bugle" and "trumpet" have connotations that make translating "shofar" difficult or imprecise.

Information Needs in Star Trek

I am reading a Star Trek -- Next Generation novel. The story has Will Riker going to a planet on a trade mission to attend a trade conference and ensure that the planet will be a trade partner with the Federation. His contact is murdered. During the trade which corresponds to Carnival, high technology is forbidden to be used. Although the definition "high technology" is not made clear, standard Federation weapons are not allowed, but limited communicators use is allowed. Even medical devices needed to repair injuries are limited during the "high tech" ban.

The actual mission is secret from all the members of the Enterprise crew except the captain. Several crew members try to figure out the mission by doing research.

I find it very interesting that the Star Trek universe can imagine space travel and how to over come the speed of light for travel, but for communications and information gathering they are decades behind what we do today. They have no concept of a a library data base. The interaction with the computer is voice activated. Their computers some how can read minds and figure out intentions. Even in 1990 the writers had no concept of personal computing devices or distributed computing resources. The idea of a communicator is still based on the walkie-talkie concept rather than a personal telephone. A star ship and its crew must need huge amounts of information for its missions, but the writers give very few clues how the information is gathered, organized and used.

Additional Books for sale

Last week I visited the book collection of a rabbi, ordained in 1932, who died in the early 1970's in Chicago. His daughter gave me some of the books that she wanted to get rid of. Most of the books were pretty ordinary, but some had interesting dedications. Mordecai M. Kaplan, the founder of both the Young Israel Movement and Reconstructionist Movement wrote Judaism as a Civilization in 1934. This was the basis for all his later philosophical works. Kaplan wrote a dedication in a first edition of this book to the rabbi. The rabbi had been one of his students. Other books with Kaplan's dedication are listed by dealers with prices ranging from $250-695.

H. Pereira Mendes (1853-1937), the rabbi of Shearith Israel, the Spanish Portuguese Synagogue, write the book Esther and Harbonah in 1917. While the book is nothing special, this copy has a full page dedication to Jacob Schiff (1847-1920). Schiff was a wealthy financier and philanthropist. His firm Kuhn, Loeb was one of the two most powerful banking houses in the United States. He gave generous support to Jewish Theological Seminary, Yeshiva University, Barnard College, Jewish Publication Society and many others. He competed with his brother-in-law who endowed the Loeb Classics at Harvard University. Schiff supported the Jewish Publication Society's Jewish Classics series.

The list of books for sale has been updated to include these and about 800 others. Find them at: http://home.earthlink.net/~byls-press/BYLS_Book_sale1.htm. Most of the books are also listed on Amazon.com. My list includes subject headings and all the author names are listed as they appear in library catalogs.