Etymology of Yarmulke

After much research I finally finished the first part of the the study of yarmulke. It is posted as part of my Librarian's Lobby column for August. It is double the length of my usual column and includes 17 footnotes.

It is hard to believe that this is my 100th column. Please spread the word.
Use this link to read the article: http://home.earthlink.net/~ddstuhlman/crc100.pdf

The additional parts will appear in the coming months. Since this month is the start of the school year and next month starts Elul, I can't promise when they will be done.

In the research and preparation process I had many discussions with people at shul. For some without an understanding of linguistics or history they are quick to quote what they were taught as a child. The type of head covering one wears today is related closely to the message you want to give to the people around you. If you wear a big black hat the message is different than a kippah with your favorite sports team.

Whenever I research a Yiddish word that does not come from Germanic or Hebrew roots there is always an interesting story. The next word people have asked me to search is "parve."

Visit to JTS Library --> Corrections

Today I heard from three librarians who had corrections for my Librarian's Lobby column of July. They each had corrections to the article. No one outside of the JTS would even know about the errors. One was in the caption to a photo. I mentioned that the staircase was closed. It is not. I fixed the mistake in identifying people. Since I didn't mention names, no one outside of the library would notice.

However, no one noticed a word that I misspelled in the first line. It was in Hebrew and I guess the spell checker couldn't help me.

The article has been corrected and I hope everyone is happy. I am just flattered that someone reads what I wrote and took the time to help me fix it.

The corrected column may be downloaded from: http://home.earthlink.net/~ddstuhlman/crc99.pdf

I received a request to review the online bibliographies of Hebrew books, but I am not able to do it because I do not have access to them. I am looking for ideas for new columns. Please send me your ideas and questions concerning libraries and Jewish books.