A Classification System for Libraries of Judaica - Hardcover

Elazar, David H.; Elazar, Daniel J.; Glasser, Rachel K.; Frischer, Rita B.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0765759837 ISBN 13: 9780765759832

Publisher: Jason Aronson, Inc., 1997

Synopsis

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About this title

About the Author

Daniel J. Elazar, Senator N.M. Paterson Professor Emeritus of Intergovernmental Relations at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, is the founder and president of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and founder and editor of the Jewish Political Studies Review. He is also Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center for the Study of Federalism at Temple University in Philadelphia, founder and editor-in-chief of Publius: The Journal of Federalism, and founder and past president of the International Association of Centers for Federal Studies. He is the author or editor of over 60 books including a 4-volume study of the Covenant Tradition in Politics (Transaction, 1995-1998), as well as Community and Polity, The Jewish Polity, and People and Polity, a trilogy on Jewish political and community organization from earliest times to the present.

Reviews

Librarians organizing large collections on narrow topics not collected by the Library of Congress (LC) and other libraries rarely are satisfied with how their subject is treated by standard classifications. Judaica's problems are exacerbated by Christian biases in Dewey and LC classifications. This new edition excises the bias, expands subtopics of Judaism, and gives all knowledge a Judaic spin. Using Dewey-like notation and decimal division, its main classes are Bible and Biblical Studies; Classical Judaica; Jewish Observance and Practice; Jewish Education; Hebrew, Jewish Languages, and Sciences; Jewish Literature; Jewish Community; Jewish History, Geography, Biography; Israel and Zionism; and Generalia. Most classes have three or four digits, but a few extend to six. Other useful features are a section about classifying and an index, although the latter contains errors, e.g., for Death and Dying one is sent to 010.5, Dead Sea Scrolls. Originally developed for the United Hebrew Schools of Detroit and circulated informally in 1962, a second edition was published in 1968 by Wayne State University Libraries. This attractive third edition is the most professional-looking. Few numbers have changed, but vocabulary is extensively updated, and additions for new topics are ubiquitous. This is an improved Elazar, but the Big Question is whether nonstandard systems are appropriate. Given that Dewey and LC have expanded coverage of Judaica and that libraries in Israel and elsewhere use them successfully, arguments for applying Elazar are weak. Nonetheless, librarians should consider this for reference even if they do not adopt it for shelving.?Sheila S. Intner, GSLIS, Simmons Coll., Boston
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Jason Aronson, Inc.
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0765759837
• ISBN 13: 9780765759832
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 3
• Number of pages: 250