Record Libraries

[Robert Wiener <rwiener...>]

LIBRARIES WITH JEWISH SOUND RECORDINGS:
(with some strengths listed below)
There are a number of libraries which have extensive Jewish Music
Recordings:

YIVO in New York, (of course, attributed to be the world's largest
collection of East European Jewish sound recordings...)

JTS (Jewish Theological Seminary) in New York, (strength in cantorial)

School of Sacred Music of the Hebrew Union College (New York) & there
are
extensive sound recordings at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati,
(strength
in cantorial, choral, Reform)

Harvard University (attempts to be comprehensive in collecting --is
especially good on Israeli music recordings, according to Virginia
Danielson at MLA last Feb.)

University of Pennsylvania, Freedman Archive (commercial,cantorial,
popular
American Jewish music)
http://www.library.upenn.edu/friends/freed/

Jewish Music Resource Centre, Hebrew University, Jerusalem (Jewish and
non-Jewish communities in Israel)
http://shum.cc.huji.ac.il/~jmrc/pubs.htm

Gratz College in Philadelphia (lots of 78s! European and American
Jewish)
http://www.gratzcollege.edu/collegeindex.html

Indiana: See Tischler Collection at Indiana (scores, Israeli)
http://www.music.indiana.edu/collections/tischler.html

Judy,

Thanks for that great list.  I've been to several of them (JTS, HUC NY,
HUC Cincinnati, Gratz).  As I recall, HUC Cincinnati was the most
impressive to me for comprehensiveness and organization.  I spent
several hours looking through its collection for research as to and
didn't get 1/3 of the way through.  And that was without looking at the
78s!

In your opinion, which of the others is worth going out of one's way
for?  Which are looking for contributions of recordings?

One library not on your list is that at the Elaine Kaufman Cultural
Center Abraham Goodman House 129 West 67th Street, New York, NY 10023
Phone: 212-501-3360 Fax: 212-874-7865.  I remember being particularly
impressed by its non-commercial broadcast tapes of Israeli classical
music from Kol Israel.  Does it still exist?

I'd also be interested in which of our list members have private
collections with concentrations on particular themes.  I think that I
heard of a New Jerseyan with a wonderful cantorial collection and a
Philadelphian with an extensive general Jewish collection for which he
had created a database (that I believe was on file at the Goodman
house0.

Eventually, perhaps we could share suggestions as to cataloguing
(creating and importing computer databases), transliterating or Hebrew
computer programs, sources...  Are there any print or internet resources
with such information?  (Thanks Judy for your wonderful site.)  I could
go on and on, but I guess that I already have.

Bob Wiener