Discovering Jewish Studies Collections in Academic Libraries: A Practical Guide

The U.S. colleges and universities offering non-sectarian educational programs in Jewish Studies rely on the support of their academic libraries for research materials and library services. For college libraries which use Library of Congress Classification scheme, it is a common practice to integrate studies resources into their general library collections. Since Jewish Studies sources span a vast number of subjects within all major disciplines, shelving integration leads to the dispersion of all relevant sources and such dispersion in turn leads to a variety of problems for library professionals and library users. For collection development librarians the problems range from lack of information about collection\u27s size, strengths or weaknesses, and for library users interested in browsing the collection, dispersion of subjects creates a major roadblock. This practical guide aims at providing a solution to such problems. By identifying all relevant Library of Congress call numbers and the corresponding Library of Congress subject headings, the guide offers a simplified access to Jewish Studies sources in general library collections. It is arranged by four major discipline: Arts & Humanities, Social Sciences, Sciences, and General Works & Bibliographies. Within each discipline, specific LC call number ranges and corresponding subjects are listed. The subjects are further subdivided and precisely identified. The guide will assist collection development librarians, library liaisons, grants and fundraising professionals and especially the Jewish Studies faculty and students, in identifying and locating relevant sources