Decision-Making for Automation: Hebrew and Arabic Script Materials in the Automated Library (review)

Book Reviews 115 theorists and critics in Comparative Literature in general, to ignore the marginalized literatures of Hebrew and Yiddish. Esther Fuchs Judaic Studies University ofArizona Decision-Making for Automation: Hebrew and Arabic Script Materials in the Automated Library, by Elizabeth Vernon. Occasional Papers, 205. Champaign: Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois, 1996. 91 pp. n.p.l. The most pressing issue in Judaica collections has been the implications ofautomation of library card catalogues. While this is not unique to Judaica libraries, all libraries are having to do without priilted catalog cards from the Library ofCongress. However, this presents a more complex problem for Judaica collections because of the question of multiple scripts for bibliographic data. Basically, the question is how to display Hebrew (and Yiddish, Ladino, etc.) records. This has been answered several ways by libraries, but mainly has meant either that records are romanized (usually transliterated) or a library purchased one of the on-line public access catalogues (OPAC) systems which allow Hebrew language script data. Vernon clearly defmes the differences between the two approaches, as well as their implications for users and for networking possibilities. OPACs have several advantages beyond traditional card catalogues, such as the possibility ofsearching catalogues away from the library (useful especially for distance learners) and allowing new ways of searching, such as by keyword, publisher, date ofpublication, and, most importantly, Boolean techniques (and, or, not). Vernon, who is Technical Services Librarian at Harvard College Library's Judaica Division, has completed a major survey of the reaction taken by Judaica 'libraries at major international research institutions. She has done an equally significant examination oflibraries with Arabic-language holdings in the same volume. This should be read by all Judaica librarians, as well as Judaica scholars, so that they can understand the significant decision libraries are forced to make. Vernon mentions the promises made by several OPAC producers to develop Hebrew scripts once the Unicode standards are formalized. This will mean that a second edition updating this should be most interesting within a few years. Perhaps the author of that work will consider adding information from smaller Judaica libraries, such as synagogue libraries, which are struggling with many of the same issues. 116 SHOFAR Winter 1998 Vol. 16, No.2 Overall, this work is a major accomplishment, which includes a thorough bibliography ofrelevant citations. Andrew B. Wertheimer Woodman Astronomical Library University ofWisconsin, Madison Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook: Experience and Identity, edited by John Grenville and Julius Carlebach. Volume XLI. London: Seeker and Warburg, 1996. 518 pp.£27.00. Seventeen scholars from several different countries have contributed to the forty-fIrst volume ofthe Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook. This yearbook is broken into six disparate sections that cover everything from the Haskalah to Jewish life in Breslau under the Nazis. Many ofthe articles, regardless ofthe specifIc theme, take up the argument that Gershom Scholem put forth in 1962 denying that there has ever been a German-Jewish symbiosis because, as he put it, it takes two to have a dialogue. The Israeli historian Evyatar Friese! invokes that very question in his piece on the German-Jewish encounter as a historical problem. "Contemporary Jewry experiences all the results ofthe spiritual and cultural integration into Gentile society," the author asserts, "a process in which the German period was ofoutstanding importance" (p. 275). Judging from Friesel and most of the essays here, Scholem was wrong. Many of this year's contributions, as well as others in past volumes, are fIlled with the influence Jews have had on German culture; others are filled with the influence of German culture on Jews, so that for many the two became intertwined by the twentieth century. Peter Pulzer, in his essay on "Jews and nation-building in Germany," briefly chronicles the many Jews who were active in both revolutionary and national movements, noting that their participation is remarkable given the small percentage ofJews in Germany (p. 214). He inquires whether there was anything distinctly Jewish about their presence and answers both yes and no--hence the dilemma for any study of German Jews. On the one hand, Pulzer intones, nothing "was said or done by any of the Jews ... that...