Sunday, September 3, 2017

Cataloging Postcards




September 3, 2017  (Updated Sept. 5, 2017)

My summer project has been to catalog part of my postcard collection. I own about 2500 in 19 loose-leaf binders that are arranged by city.  One binder is just for Chicago related cards and two are for Jerusalem. So far, I have added 376 cards to the catalog.  Each catalog record also has a scan of the picture since many have similar texts.  Several people (non-librarians) have asked why do I catalog them.  “Is it not enough to have them in a box?”

Migdal David Museum at Jaffa Gate  picture that I took in August 1990.
Cataloging and arranging books or other materials enables one to figure out context.  Having a pile of things does not help one understand the connections.  Partly I catalog them because I can catalog them.  My library catalog is a record of what I own.  It is searchable by author, title, subject or any other field in the record.  I have more search options than the expensive library system in the college where I work.  I also want to get a sense of history.  Many cards are more than 60 years old. Many of the cards are hard to date.  The ones that were mailed have a date that means the card was published before that date.  The postcards are easier to keep track of than photographs. Some have messages that were written by people I know or sent to relatives who have passed away.

I had to make some local cataloging rules to facilitate efficient cataloging.  The title field is taken from the caption on the non-picture side.  Only the English text is transcribed.  The title always includes a media designator “[postcard]” even though RDA does not require this.  The subject has the name of the city with a genre “postcards.” The classification has an album designation. If there is no caption on the non-picture side and words on the picture side, those words were transcribed.

The places pictured have changed.  After cataloging so many from Israel, I want to see if I can find the same scene today as depicted in the picture on the card.  Below is an example of the changes.  The Hurva Synagogue ( בית הכנסת החורבה‎‎) is on 89 ha-Yehudim Street in the Old City of Jerusalem [1].  The original synagogue was built in the early 1700’s but destroyed by the Moslems.  The site was unoccupied for 164 years and acquired the name “Hurva” meaning “destroyed.” It was rebuilt in 1864 as city’s main Ashkenazi synagogue. When Rabbi Dr. Yitzhak Herzog came to Israel as the chief rabbi, he delivered his first public speech in this synagogue.[2]  After the 1948-49 Israel-Arab War the Jordanians again destroyed the synagogue.  For many years, all that was left was the arch.  

Hurva Interior from between 1934-38.  Library of Congress Collections.


Here are some postcards from in the years 1970-1995.



In 2010 the reconstruction project was completed and people were again able to use the synagogue for prayers. 


About 2011

In August 2012 I took the picture below. Notice that the arch and the remnant of the original wall is part of the reconstructed wall.  This was the only time I was able to take a picture of a place in the postcard collection and compare it to a contemporary view.  The next time I visit Israel I am going to attempt to visit places in the postcards to see how much the places have changed.


Interior 2012.  Notice the similarity to the 1938 interior.

[1] For more information see these web sites: “Hurva Synagogue “  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurva_Synagogue  or  “The Hurva Synagogue” http://www.rova-yehudi.org.il/sites/the-hurva-synagogue/

[2] See page 40 for a picture and page 41 for the text in The Rabbinate in Stormy Days: The Life and Teachings of Rabbi Yitzhak Isaac HaLevi Herzog, Chief Rabbi of Israel  / by Shaul Mayzlish. Springfield, NJ :Gefen Books, 2017.

Note:  The LMS system I use is called LibrarySoft.  I got in in 1995 when I used it for automating that library where I worked.  The vendor allowed me use a copy at home.  Since I no longer work there,  I paid for a personal update.  In 1995 it was a great inexpensive program, but by today's standards, it is not very powerful.  My personal collection has more than 6000 bibliographic entries.  I recently started adding all the electronic books and articles that I have used in my research. That allows me to find them without the need to print them out.  My collection includes books, not-print video and audio, articles, analytics, and even serialized equipment.

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Friday, August 18, 2017

The Search for Newspaper Coverage




This week I was researching anti-Semitic vandalism that happened in Chicago between May 20 and June 2, 1972 in the West Rogers Park neighborhood that I live.  I was doing the research for a video documentary of the neighborhood.  On May 20 and June 2 nine Jewish institutions were vandalized.  The vandals painted swastikas on outside and invaded some buildings causing damage to walls, objects and floors.  However, this article is not about the event, but the search for newspaper coverage of the event.


Using ProQuest I found one article from the Chicago Tribune published June 22, 1972 that reported the incidents. This confirmed the dates. The other Chicago daily newspapers of the time are not indexed.  In looking through the microfilms of the Daily News I found a letter to the editor about the event that refers to a previous article.  I couldn’t find the actual article.  The Daily News on microfilm is a challenge to browse.  Some articles are repeated and some pages are missing.  The front page as a very small table of contents, that is largely useless to find content.


I was doing the search for a videographer.  She wanted to know what the neighborhood papers and the Jewish papers wrote about the incidents.  In 1972 The Lerner Newspapers had several neighborhood publications including the North Town News, which covered West Rogers Park. The chain at one time had 54 publications, but by 1992 had consolidated to 14 publications.  The chain was sold many times and the last owner was Sunstates Corp. who bought it in 1992 from the Pulitzer Publishing Company, which also owned the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.  For a full story see: “Lerner Newspapers Plans To Close In October” by Charles Storch[1].  August 06, 1992 and also the Wikipedia article “Lerner Newspapers.” [2] The Wikipedia article makes several references to the Illinois Newspaper Project.  This project attempts to save local Illinois papers, but they are focused on the 19th century.

I started searching for the archives of the North Town News. I searched Illinois Digital Archives[3] (a project to preserve local Illinois documents and newspapers) and Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library's Newspaper Microfilm Collection[4] and found nothing.  I searched the Chicago Public Library, WorldCat, and Chicago Historical Society Research Center and found nothing.  I searched the online databases of ProQuest[5] and Ebsco and found nothing.  I asked a journalist friend for other search ideas.  He said that in the haste to close the Lerner Newspapers, probably no one bothered to save the archives. I even appealed to crowd sourcing[6] to see if any collector had saved the newspaper or made a clipping file. I have to assume that no one saved the archives or made copies of the actual papers.

The only Jewish newspaper in 1972 was the Sentinel.  This was published in tabloid magazine-like format weekly.  Journalistically it was a rather tired old paper that mostly had warmed over press releases, social news, and a couple of columns. They had no reporters. There were no investigative stories or even coverage based on in-person reporter attended events. In the end, there was little original material in any of its pages. The Illinois Digital Archives has a run that ends in 1949.  I searched all of the above online sources and found one library that had print copies.  The run is incomplete.  I don’t want to mention the name of the library since the list of holdings is not accurate.  If you examine the holdings below, it looks are if they hold the issues from (Feb. 10, 1972)-v. 124, no. 4 (Aug. 31, 1972).  This would seem to include the May and June issues that I wanted.  However, when the storage box of issues arrived. These issues were missing.  For want of a semi-colon instead of the hyphen, I made a trip to this library in vain.  This demonstrates the importance of accurate cataloging.  Even if the cataloging was reviewed by another cataloger, this mistake would not have been found.


Local note: 
Library has: v. 115, no. 11 (Mar. 17, 1949); v. 162 (sic.), no. 12 (June 17, 1948); v. 208, no. 8 (Jan. 14, 1960); v. 108, no. 15 (Nov. 4, 1965); v. 109, no. 8 (Mar. 17, 1966); v. 109, no. 12 (Apr. 14, 1966); v. 109, no. 22 (June 23, 1966)-v. 110, no. 16 (Nov. 10, 1966); v. 110, no. 18 (Nov. 24, 1966)-v. 111, no. 7 (Mar. 9, 1967); v. 111, no. 9 (Mar. 23, 1967)-v. 140 (sic.), no. 22 (June 22, 1967); v. 140 (sic.), no. 24 (July 6, 1967); v. 112, no. 16 (Nov. 9, 1967); v. 112, no. 18 (Nov. 23, 1967)-v. 113, no. 2 (Feb. 8, 1968; v. 113, no. 9 (Mar. 28, 1968); v. 114, no. 14 (May 2, 1968); v. 114, no. 25 (July 18, 1968); v. 116, no. 18 (May 29, 1969); v. 118, no. 5 (Sept. 4, 1969); v. 118, no. 14 (Nov. 13, 1969); v. 118, no. 16 (Nov. 27, 1969)-v. 118, no. 18 (Dec. 11, 1969); v. 118, no. 23 (Jan. 15, 1970)-v. 119, no. 2 (Feb. 19, 1970); v. 119, no. 6 (Mar. 19, 1970)-v. 122, no. 25 (Jan. 27, 1972); v. 123, no. 1 (Feb. 10, 1972)-v. 124, no. 4 (Aug. 31, 1972).

However, while preparing this article I found that the National Library of Israel[7] has online digital copies. NLI with Tel Aviv University has a project to digitize historic Jewish newspapers. The site currently has 114 newspapers; only five are in English[8]. 

I started without even knowing if an article existed and below is a screen shot of one item I found.  Warning—be very careful when using punctuation in a catalog record, a tiny error may waste the readers’ time.



[2] Retrieved on Aug. 17, 2017 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lerner_Newspapers  The Chicago Park District has a park near my house named after Leo Lerner, the founder of the Lerner Newspapers.


[3] Retrieved on Aug. 17, 2017 http://www.idaillinois.org/



[5] ProQuest and Ebsco are paid databases available from many libraries.  ProQuest has a special historical newspaper collection.  It is ironic that I could find a microfilm of a 19th century small town newspaper, but not a newspaper that I once read as soon as it was distributed.


[6] Some people did respond to my query. The importance of a reference interview is very important when I try to help researchers. One question I always ask puzzled researchers is what they have already checked so that I don’t repeat the obvious. I put into my query all of the above sources that I checked.  One person said to check the Jewish Federation newspaper.  It was a house organ that did not cover news events. 



[8] The collection has: B'nai B'rith Messenger, Palestine Bulletin (which changed its name to the Palestine Post and in 1950 to the Jerusalem Post), The Forward, The Occident and American Jewish Advocate.
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