Organize your collections to share and preserve history

The Jewish Studies research collections at Columbia are known to have the largest collection of Judaica manuscripts in a secular research university in the United States. Home to over 150,000 monograph volumes and 1,000 current and historical periodical titles, the library sought to ensure locating rare titles while also increasing awareness of their collection was easy for staff, faculty, students, and researchers. Their Jewish Studies resources, including manuscripts, are cataloged in WorldCat, making them more discoverable when searching WorldCat on FirstSearch.

“WorldCat is a ‘catalog of catalogs’ and it’s a good place to start when you want to find unique material in libraries. FirstSearch builds on that foundation with its precise search for known items.” Michelle Margolis, Norman E. Alexander Librarian for Jewish Studies, Columbia University, said.

Find specific items with ease

An early adopter of FirstSearch, the librarians at this special library appreciate its tremendous value to their institution, with such important features as unclustered search results, search by language, search for non-Roman scripts, and non-digitized materials, all of which are critical to rare books collections. In fact, Margolis has found it remains a valuable place to showcase this unique collection. Her favorite feature, being able to structure very specific searches with limits by language, format, and publication date, makes it easy for Columbia researchers to find what they need. “The search ability is unparalleled,” Margolis said. “If you know what you’re looking for, or even if you don’t, searching based on what you know will automatically help narrow it down.” She said they also have FirstSearch set up to enable interlibrary loan requests, so users can get the items they identify in their searches.  

FirstSearch also remains a staple on campus as well. The library provides access to WorldCat on FirstSearch from its catalog and includes FirstSearch in library instruction classes, making access to their desired resources all the easier.

Share your collection globally

Margolis also uses FirstSearch for additional initiatives. The library is a part of a global group composed of scholars, professors, and librarians dedicated to tracking the path and locations of rare Jewish books through time and space. In partnership with the group, Margolis used FirstSearch as one of the services to help create “Footprints,” a database collecting information about the movement of Jewish books (and about the people who owned, bought, sold, and censored them) from the inception of print.. FirstSearch helped her search WorldCat for specific items and determine which libraries own those items. With help from fellow researchers in libraries around the world, including Dublin, Ireland, Frankfurt, Germany, and Jerusalem, Israel, the global group used data within early printed books to build “the largest hidden archive,” of the Jewish past.

“The search ability is unparalleled,” Margolis said. “If you know what you’re looking for, or even if you don’t, using the precision search features based on what you know will automatically help narrow it down.”

Location

• New York City, New York, USA

Library at a glance

• One of 14 libraries on Columbia University’s campus
• Owns a wide collection of materials in old Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, Judeo-Arabic, and other Jewish languages
• Has a Psalter manuscript from 1685 in its collection that includes half-musical notation