Touro College The TCL Letter A Newsletter of the Touro College Libraries Volume 7, Issue 2

Fall 2007

INSIDE THIS ISSUE: From the Acting Director . . . Bashe Simon

Personnel Update 2 On Monday, October 22, attend our workshops. Sara Biography Resource Center New Electronic 2 a farewell collation was held at can be contacted at allows one to browse current Resources the Midtown Library for Dr. 212.463.9400 ext. 233 or by and historic biographies. Libraries and 3 Jackie Maxin, Director of Li- email: [email protected]. BooksInPrint.com Professional Archives in the braries. The event was organ- Ancient Middle East Annette Carr joins our staff as is a searchable tool for infor- ized by Dean Boylan and Ma- the Librarian of the Graduate mation on books, audio books Touro College 4 Archives rina Zilberman, Chief Midtown School of Business at 65 or videos. It is an essential Librarian, and was attended by Broadway, which is scheduled resource for librarians, profes- Information Literacy 4 Dr. Bernard Lander, the Col- to open in March. Sarah K. sors and students. 15th Annual 5 lege Senate members, faculty Laleman is the new Assistant Innovative Users and most of the Library Staff. At this point we would Group Conference Librarian on Sundays at the We at the Touro College Li- Women’s Building. We wel- like to simultaneously wish a Encoded Archival 5 warm farewell to Dr. Maxin Description brary will miss Dr. Maxin’s come our new staff members. inspiration and leadership. and welcome our new staff Spring 2007 User 6 Survey New databases have been members. As Acting Director We are pleased to an- added to the Proprietary Data- of the Libraries I hope to fol- nounce the appointment of bases. Counseling and Psycho- low in the illustrious footsteps Sara Tabaei, the new Informa- therapy Transcripts, Client of Dr. Maxin. Together with tion Literacy Librarian. Sara Narratives, and Reference the entire library staff I look has contacted the Deans and Works contains 12,500 search- forward to continuing the vi- Chairs and is looking forward able transcripts of actual ther- sion and mission of excellence to meeting with the staff and apy and counseling sessions. that have become the hallmark Spotlight on New faculty, who are invited to of the Touro College Libraries. Electronic Resources Bar Ilan University Responsa Biography Resource Center Computer Database Westlaw Campus Research

More on page 2! Dr. In addition to library staff from many Touro locations, administrators who Maxin’s attended included (with Dr. Maxin at Farewell left) Dr. Lander and Dean Boylan. Party! Personnel Update

Welcome Aboard! Congratulations on Workshop of the Association of Jewish Libraries, New York Metro- Advanced Degrees politan Area Chapter, at the Jewish Marjorie Charlot, Assistant Librar- Children’s Museum in Brooklyn. ian, Kings Highway Starvita D. Patterson, Library As- Stanley Noel, Library Assistant, sistant, Kings Highway, graduated June 14-15, 2007—Associate Direc- Harlem (Taino) with an AS from Touro College tor of Libraries Michoel Ronn at- tended METRO’s Digitization 101 Leiba Rimler, Technical & Elec- Amram S. Rister, Judaica Librarian, Workshop at the Metropolitan New tronic Services Assistant, Midtown received his MSEd from Baruch York Library Council. College, and was ordained a Rabbi Rose J. Weill, Technical & Elec- June 17-20, 2007—Women’s Build- tronic Services Assistant, Midtown ing Librarian Dr. David Levy and Meetings, Conferences and Jamie Luise, Library Assistant, Bay Judaica Librarian Rabbi Amram S. Shore Workshops Rister attended The Association of Sara Tabaei, Information Literacy Jewish Libraries’ 42nd Conference Librarian April 30, 2007—Women’s Building in Scottsdale, AZ. Librarian Dr. David Levy and Ju- Sarah K. Laleman, Assistant Librar- daica Librarian Amram S. Rister June 21, 2007—Systems Librarian ian, Women’s Building attended the Reference Workshop Yitzchak Schaffer attended a PREMIS of the Association of Jewish Li- Tutorial at the Library of Congress’ braries at the main New York Whittier Pavilion. Recipients of Touro College’s Public Library building. June 24, 2007—Judaica Librarian Quarterly Incentive Award May 8, 2007—Midwood Librarian Rabbi Amram S. Rister attended the Eldira Agalliu attended METRO’s Business Meeting & Dinner of the Aretha E. Fairweather, Library Jewish Information Committee of Assistant, Harlem Reference Issues Forum at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s the Ethnic & Multicultural Informa- Miriam Magill, Library Assistant, Thomas J. Watson Library. tion Exchange Round Table of the Bensonhurst ALA’s Annual Conference in Wash- May 17, 2007—Women’s Building ington, DC. Rose J. Weill, Technical & Elec- Librarian Dr. David Levy attended tronic Services Assistant, Midtown the Reference Technologies

New Electronic Resources

Bar Ilan University Responsa—online Counseling and Psychotherapy Tran- version of Global Jewish database fea- Proprietary databases listed here are scripts, Client Narratives, and Refer- restricted to the Touro community. All tures Biblical and Talmudic material, can be accessed from any Touro PC, ence Works—updated biweekly, this works on Jewish law and more from and most can be accessed off-campus landmark collection includes diaries, the Responsa Literature. To access the with a login and password. For letters, oral histories and full-text tran- security reasons, it is our policy not to Encyclopedia Talmudit, use the Bar email the login and password. To scripts of therapy and counseling ses- Ilan Responsa 14 networked CD- obtain them, contact any of our sions

ROM libraries. Biography Resource Center— Psychology: A SAGE Full-Text Collec- includes over 435,000 biographies on and specialties including technology, tion—weekly updates of 35 journals over 340,000 figures from all subjects bilingual education, health education with over 21,600 articles on develop- and disciplines around the world and test administration mental psychology, language acquisition, group studies, learning disabilities and Computer Database—provides ac- MD Consult (Core Service Clinics)— other subjects cess to leading periodicals on com- allows users to search 35 clinic titles, puter, telecommunications and elec- including geriatric, sleep, sports medi- tronics industries Westlaw Campus Research—provides cine, neurologic, orthopedic and psychi- tabs for News and Business or Law re- atric xreferplus has been renamed Credo search, with access to periodicals, trade Reference Political Science: A SAGE Full-Text journals, newswires, U.S. company pro- Collection—includes full-text access to files and information, broadcast tran- 25 journals with over 10,000 articles scripts, American Jurisprudence 2d, Educator’s Reference Complete—full American Law Reports and over 700 law -text results for nearly half of all journal and weekly updates, covering interna- reviews and journals

titles found in ERIC, it covers educa- tional relations, peace/conflict studies, tional levels from preschool to college American government and more Page 2 THE TCL LETTER A NEWSLETTER OF THE TOURO COLLEGE LIBRAR IES VOLUME 7, ISSUE 2 Page 3 Libraries and Archives in the Ancient Middle East by Dr. David B. Levy, Women’s Building Librarian

With the continued unrest in , theme. Tiglath Pileser III of Nimrud it may be interesting to consider the built further archives and is mentioned ancient libraries and archives that once in 2 Kings 15:29, dating from the period served as the jewels of the Middle East, of the prophet Isaiah. Other kings of beginning with the earliest known and ancient Israel in the Bible such as Omri working forward in time. and Ahab (the time of Elijah and Elisha) Archeologists have found in the are also cited in archived inscriptions. ruins of Ur (now in Iraq), the birth- The , commissioned by place of Abraham, (wedge the King of Persia, dates to the period shaped writing) tablets (ca. 2100-1948 of Ezra and Nehemiah, and gives the B.C.E.) classified by topic and stored in Jews permission to return to Israel and clay boxes called saduppu. build the second Temple. Ramses II (ca. 1300 B.C.E.) of The library of (668- Egypt, thought by some archeologists 627 B.C.E.) at Ninevah (now , to be the Pharaoh who enslaved the Iraq), the city to which Jonah flees, and The Great , whose destruction in 612 B.C.E. is Hebrews, built a library that contained by O. Von Corven 20,000 rolls. Ramses’ grandson celebrated by the prophet Nahum was Merneptah’s mummy exists, and the excavated in 1849. In the archives that were uncovered, tablets were grouped Merneptah Stele (1230 BCE) inscrip- housed in this library, as well as a copy of tion mentions the “sons of Israel” together by series (iskaru) and subser- ies (pirsu), arranged by numbers, and the Septuagint (the Hebrew Bible in Greek) against whom Merneptah battled, pos- which Longinus in his work On the Sublime sibly during the period of the Jews’ indexed at the rims with finding lists inscribed on the walls near the doors. (Peri hupsos) calls the most sublime work leaving Egypt or during the lifetime of ever written. Moses’ successor, Joshua. Literary texts that may have ex- isted in these collections include The 2 Maccabees 2:13-15 mentions that The Mari archive in Syria hosted “Nehemiah founded a library [in Jerusa- documents that may describe some Epic of which has a flood story paralleling the Noah flood ac- lem] and collected books about the kings parallel situations to those in Genesis and prophets, the writings of King David, such as: (1) the suzerain-vassal rela- count, The Egyptian Story of Two Broth- ers paralleling the Joseph/Potiphar wife and letters of votive offerings.” During the tionship which some have compared to period of the Macabees this library may the stipulation structure of the Ten temptation episode, or the Enuma Elish which is a polytheistic creation tale have been censored of Greek influences Commandments; (2) the eldest son such as the text of Ben Sira, as reflected in receiving a “double portion”; and (3) (see Pritchard, James B., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testa- the censoring spirit of that era, such as the custom of offering one’s female when Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai notes handmaid as a surrogate mother if the ment). The Legal (1792-1749 B.C.E.), dating from the that the Pharisees (rabbinic Jews), unlike main wife of a patriarch was barren, the Sadducees (wealthy Hellenized Jews), relating to Sarah offering Hagar to period of Abraham, has laws paralleling those in the Five Books of Moses in- do not regard the works of Homer as Abraham, although Sarah saw that Isaac holy. merited rightful inheritance over Ish- cluding the phrase “an eye for an eye, a mael. tooth for a tooth,” although rabbinic King Solomon, "the wisest of men" (I tradition interpreted it as monetary Kings 3:9-12), remarked that "of the mak- Archeologists have uncovered at compensation. ing of many books there is no end." The Ashur (the ancient capital of builder of the First Temple, however, did whose remains are also in Iraq) twenty The library in Alexandria, Egypt, the glory of the Hellenic world, organ- not directly comment upon the problems -five thousand tablets from over fifty in librarianship of storage, classification, archives. One of the archives may have ized scrolls based on Callimachus’ (305 -240 BCE) 120-volume catalog called cataloging, preservation, reference, organi- been founded by Tiglath Pileser I (from zation, and retrieval of texts. As we come around the period of King David) and the Pinakes. The library halls were lined with Armaria, or lockers in which full circle from scrolls to scrolling online, contained a legal collection known as we are still faced with the task of organiz- the Middle Assyrian Laws. An ordering scrolls were deposited. A copy of Aris- totle’s lost study of Comedy, that com- ing the texts of our days, like the ancient principal included the arrangement of a librarians of the Middle East. series of tablets that share a common plemented his Poetics on Tragedy, was

The Touro The Touro College Libraries aspire to be the primary resource for intellectual

College content College-wide. To fulfill the mission of the College, the Libraries foster Libraries’ intellectual discovery and advance information literacy. Mission THE TCL LETTER Page 4 A NEWSLETTER OF THE TOURO COLLEGE LIBRAR IES Touro College Archives: Fully Activated! by Philip Papas, Touro College Archivist

Since my arrival in March 2007 I have ning all around us, for future generations been busy with the first archival collections to see. of Touro College. Archives are often de- Of course, not every human activity scribed as the byproduct of human activity. is worth recording or preserving. My pri- Judging by the sheer volume and breadth of mary role as archivist is to appraise which the materials I am processing, there has items will hold some type of value for been a whole lot of activity at Touro, even future uses. Those records of activities before its doors first opened in 1971! which have little or no potential value may Thus far I have examined nearly half of be discarded. However, records often our first collection, mainly consisting of the have a useful lifespan, even if this is for a papers of Touro founder Dr. Bernard Lan- anyone out there have a 5 ¼” floppy limited time. Careful consideration must der. Dr. Lander’s activities have been pro- drive?) steno pads with shorthand dictation be given before discarding any records. lific and productive; nothing in my archival notes and assorted ephemera such as med- The archives are stored in a small background prepared me for the dynamic als, plaques and posters. Following this first area nestled within the Technical & Elec- force of Touro’s development under his collection of over 60 large cartons, new tronic Services Department on the second tireless direction. So many more key play- collections have been submitted by addi- floor of 33 West 23rd Street. This room is ers also took part, and still others, whose tional administration and faculty, including being modified for optimal preservation roles were not always the most prestigious Dean Boylan. As more key players add the conditions, with archival shelving and envi- or glamorous. Yet their activities all con- byproducts of their activities, Touro will ronmental controls including UV filtration tributed to the growth and success of the truly boast an awesome archive unique in of natural light and humidity monitoring. many different schools and programs. the academic world. Researchers have begun accessing the Many of the dusty cartons I am poring Archives do not contain only old and archives; one of my first and frequent over contain standard archival fare such as inactive files. Like every institution of higher visitors has been Mordechai Rosenblum, letters and memos, but there are also education, Touro College generates count- who is hard at work on a biography of Dr. pleasant surprises, including old yearbooks, less documents and records during its basic Lander. It has been a pleasure assisting photographs, architectural blueprints and operations every day. A records manage- him with his task, and I know the finished colorful promotional materials. Occasion- ment program is being implemented, with book will make good use of the byprod- ally I happen upon video and sound re- regularly scheduled transfers of documents ucts preserved in our archives. Truly, they cordings, obsolete computer disks (does to build an archive of the activities happen- are the eternal records of a life’s work.

Success in the 21st Century with Information Literacy by Sara Tabaei, Information Literacy Librarian

What is Information Literacy ? This means that in addition to their aca- demic success, students will be more effi- Information Literacy (IL) involves more cient at their future jobs and will be able than just a few library skills that students “IL teaches students to to make more informative decisions for acquire throughout their college years. navigate through the the rest of their lives. In short, geared Instead, IL teaches students key learning information maze…” with their knowledge of obtaining essential elements such as the ability to navigate information coupled with their expertise through the information maze, and critically in their field, our graduates will have the evaluating and making sense of the various ability to successfully navigate through information resources, all of which go far view, by critically analyzing the websites. information in a rapidly evolving 21st cen- beyond mastering the local library. This is especially true in fields such as tury. Why is IL important? health science, where unreliable and biased Toward this end, the Touro Information information has become easily accessible Academic success: Literacy Initiative (TILI) sponsored by the with the emergence of wikis and blogs. And Libraries promotes information literacy as Information literate students will benefit finally, students learn how to organize, an integrated component of the College more fully from their class assignments, if synthesize, present and communicate their experience. It is the responsibility of fac- they know how to conduct research. After research points intellectually. ulty, librarians and administrators to col- realizing the contradictory nature of the Life-long Learning: laborate on this important issue, assisting information available on the Internet, stu- our students in acquiring knowledge and dents are able to determine the credibility Since information competency skills are helping them become life-long learners and accuracy of the resources located. transferable, once students have gained and responsible citizens. They also can see if the information is them, they can apply their skills effectively presented from an objective point of to new situations. 15th Annual Innovative Users Group Conference by Salvatore Russo, Distance & Off-Campus Services Librarian

During the week of May 14 -17 One workshop was dedicated to 2007, Edlira Agalliu and I attended how specific libraries could be se- the 15th Annual Innovative Users lected for paging requests, based on Group Conference [IUG] in San Jose, geographic proximity or other fac- California. The IUG Conference was tors. This ensures that materials held at the San Jose Convention Cen- reach patrons as quickly as possible. ter and the adjacent Marriott Hotel Touro hopes to implement this fea- downtown. More than 1,400 librari- ture in the near future. ans from across America and around Another workshop featured the the world attended the conference, new release of Millennium, due out at including librarians from Estonia, the end of 2007. There were several Great Britain, and China. sessions dedicated to products Inno- The focal point of the confer- vative was featuring, such as Encore ence was Millennium, an integrated and ArticleReach. Encore is an at- library system. Millennium is con- tempt to “Googlize” the library cata- stantly used by Touro; whenever log by combining or linking the library holdings are looked up in our catalog or books are checked out from our catalog and databases along with the libraries, users are tapping into this Internet. powerful system. Sal and Edlira enjoy the exhibits We did manage to walk around Upon arriving in San Jose, we downtown San Jose and do some immediately attended a three-hour sightseeing, including a walk to the pre-conference seminar on collection by Jerry Kline, Chairman and CEO of In- nearby campus of San Jose State Uni- development using Millennium. The novative Interfaces, Inc. The keynote versity. We also took a fun ride on seminar focused on using the search- speaker was Robert X. Cringely, one of the San Jose Light Rail Transit Sys- able fields in the electronic catalog the pioneers of the PC industry. He was tem. records to generate different reports, th analyze a library’s collection (for the 12 employee hired at Apple, Inc. In addition to the conference usage patterns, inventory reports, back in 1977. Mr. Cringely said his claim workshops we met with several fa- etc.), create a weeding schedule and to fame was that he thought up the famil- miliar vendors, including representa- many other manipulations of data. iar “trash can” icon. tives of EBSCO Information Services On May 15th, the IUG Confer- For the rest of the week we attended and Baker & Taylor, Inc. Needless to ence officially opened at the Civic workshops from 9 am to 5:30 pm. The say, there was quite a lot of technical Auditorium, across the street from sessions were one hour each, separated information discussed during the the San Jose Convention Center. We by a half hour, which gave us a short break week-long 15th Annual IUG Confer- were welcomed to the conference and time to find to the next workshop. ence.

Encoded Archival Description by Philip Papas, Touro College Archivist

On October 9th, 2007 I attended a in 1993, EAD was conceived as a Docu- Congress authority controls are utilized workshop at the Metropolitan New York ment Type Definition (DTD). The current to keep data input consistent. A scope Library Council to learn more about version was released in December 2002. and content note and hypertext links to Encoded Archival Description (EAD). SGML (later superseded by XML) was related web pages are usually included. EAD is used by many repositories to chosen over HTML because its structure EAD documents may be created as a create electronic finding aids for re- more closely mirrors the information TXT. file or with the help of a template. searchers accessing its collections. At- hierarchy typical in archival description. It We used an XMetaL application which tending the workshop were archivists also allows for richer content encoding utilized the Darwin Information Typing from New York University and the Uni- with more refined attributes, enables Architecture (DITA) standards. At our versity of Notre Dame as well as other more sophisticated searching and facili- workshop a Saxon style sheet utilizing organizations such as Channel Thirteen. tates data migration. JavaScript was provided to convert the Because archives do not strictly EAD allows for up to 12 levels of final EAD document into an HTML for- follow the same item level cataloging description; subordinate attributes are mat which is seen by the end user. format as public and academic libraries, nested within higher layers. Description I hope to create electronic finding various attempts have been made to may briefly cover an entire collection, aids for all of Touro’s archival collections create a universal standard for archival provide a container list or feature detailed using EAD in the near future. To learn description. Originally developed at the item level metadata. MARC21 fields, more about EAD, visit the official web- University of California, Berkeley, Library AACR2 cataloging rules and Library of site: http://www.loc.gov/ead/index.html

VOLUME 7, ISSUE 2 Page 5 Forest Hills—718.520.5107 Bay Shore—631.665.1600, ext. 224 Kings Highway—718.301.2032 TOURO COLLEGE For other library locations, consult the Directory on our Web site— Libraries Midtown—212.463.0400, ext. 321 Midwood (Ave. J)—718.252.7800. ext. 260 www.touro.edu/library/ Lander College for Men—718.820.4894 Lander College for Women—212.287.3531 Harlem (Taino)—212.722.1575

Spring 2007 Library User Survey Results

80 80 60 60 40 Yes 40 Yes/Good 20 Somewhat 20 No/Bad 0 No 0 Attended Were Needs Library Computers Orientation? Addressed?

100 80 60 Yes 40 Yes 50 Sometimes 20 Somewhat Never 0 No 0 Were Electronic Resources Was Library Comfortable? Adequate?

80 80 Study 60 60 Borrow 40 40 On-Campus Research/Reference 20 20 Off-Campus Photocopies 0 0 Meet Friends Reason for Library Visit Method of Access

100 80 60 Most Times 40 Sometimes 20 Rarely 0 Never Was Library Staff Helpful? Did Library have Needed Information?

THE TCL LETTER A NEWSLETTER OF THE TOURO COLLEGE LIBRAR IES Page 6