Resrcs.Links

Online Resources for Teachers/ Librarians, Parents, and Children -- by AJLSC and AJL

Bearing Witness Through Picture Books by Lisa Silverman. School Library Journal, 3/1/2007. Annotated bibliography of books, divided into these sections: Historical Truth, Righteous Gentiles and Sympathetic Rescuers, Holocaust as Subtext, Biography, Fictional Narratives Based on Historical Truth. Holocaust videos, DVDs, and CDs. Web Sources for Librarians and Teachers; and Web Sources for Students.

• Repairing the World: Books to Use to Introduce Service Learning Projects, a Selective annotated Bibliography [e.g Feeding the Hungry, Caring for the Environment, Respecting Differences, Respecting the Elderly, Welcoming Guests], compiled March 2006 and presented at the California Association of Independent Schools Workshop by Susan Dubin, Library Consultant, Off-the-Shelf Library Services.

• List of Children's Authors and Illustrators -- most are local and available for library visits; they were guests at our Children's Literature Conference in February 2005.

Other Online Resources (links are very selective and are provided as an AJLSC service):

Jewish Book Month - starts one month before Hanukkah annually. For JBM kits, contact Jewish Book Council, 15 East 26th Street, New York, NY 10010 - 212.532.4949 X297; fax 212.481.4174.

• Authors @ Your Library -- a website linking librarians with publishers "to simplify the process of scheduling library events." Sponsored by the Association of American Publishers.

• The New Jewish Valuesfinder: A Guide to Values in Jewish Children's Books, edited by Linda R. Silver, for Association of Jewish Libraries -- the most comprehensive annotated source on the Internet for finding Jewish values expressed in Jewish children's books. The database is continuously updated and includes each book's author, title, illustrator, publisher, ISBN, values, subjects, contents, and age level. The Valuesfinder also contains lists of award winners, notable books, and news about Jewish children's books and publishing, as well as links to other children's literature websites. [Note: All who use it say this is an "excellent resource."]

• AJLSC: A Bibliography of Jews in Sports: Books! Articles! Videos! for Adults and Children. Designed by Ellen Cole. Arranged by Joel Tuchman. April 2003. 24pp. Three sections: Books for Adults; Books for Children; and Videos, Periodicals, and CD-Roms. Table of Contents, Key to [14 Local] Institutions Holding Titles, and Index of 22 different sports careers. Professionally bound. Free to AJLSC members.

• Dubin, Susan. Repairing the World: Books to Use to Introduce Service Learning Projects; A Selective Annotated Bibliography, March, 2006. This 8-page bibliography includes: Feeding the Hungry, Caring for the Environment, Respecting Differences, Respecting the Elderly, Welcoming Guests.

Silver, Linda. Jewish Classics for Kids. New York: AJL, 2006 (32 pages). A 32-page annotated bibliography of a classic canon of Jewish books for children. Indexed by author and title.

• The New Jewish Valuesfinder: A Guide to Values in Jewish Children's Books,edited by Linda R. Silver, for Association of Jewish Libraries -- ALWAYS KEPT CURRENT -- the most comprehensive annotated source on the Internet for finding Jewish values expressed in Jewish children's books. The database is continuously updated and includes each book's author, title, illustrator, publisher, ISBN, values, subjects, contents, and age level. The Valuesfinder also contains lists of award winners, notable books, and news about Jewish children's books and publishing, as well as links to other children's literature websites. [Note: All who use it say this is an "excellent resource."]

• Excellence in Jewish Children's Literature: A Guide for Book Selectors, Reviewers, and Award Judges is a new publication of AJL's School, Synagogue, and Centers Division. (It may be downloaded and copied for distribution.)

• AJL Freshman Seminars on Beginning Judaica Librarianship (appropriate for synagogue and day school libraries) - at the AJL Conventions:
    2006 - Sherry Wasserman - presented as Google videos - includes handouts to be downloaded.
        Part 1 offers an overview of basic issues about starting and running a library, including policy statements, organization, budget, staffing, collection development, and preparing for automation.
        Part 2 focuses on preparing for library automation.

• AJL Annual Convention Proceedings (Access to recent Proceedings restricted to AJL members only):

     42nd Annual Convention - 2007 (Scottsdale, AZ) - including papers by AJLSC member, Ellen Cole.
    41st Annual Convention - 2006 (Cambridge, MA) - included some papers of interest to AJLSC members.
            40th Annual Convention - 2005 (Oakland, CA) - including lots of book lists, and paper delivered by AJLSC member, Ellen Cole.
            39th Annual Convention - 2004 (Brooklyn, New York) - including Book Award Winners' speeches, as well as papers delivered by AJLSC members: Frederick Isaac, Rachel Glasser.
            38th Annual Convention- 2003 (Toronto, Ontario, Canada) - including Book Award Winners' speeches, as well as a paper by AJLSC member, Fred Isaac, who participated in the session, Jewish Children's Literature: What's Hot and What's Not -- The Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee.
   37th Annual Convention - 2002 (Denver, CO) – including Book Award Winners' speeches as well as papers by AJLSC members: Rita Frischer, Fred Isaac, and Lisa Handelman Silverman.
         36th Annual Convention - 2001 (La Jolla, CA) - including Book Award Winners' speeches as well as papers by AJLSC members:   Ellen Cole, Susan Dubin, Rita Frischer, Rachel Glasser, David Hirsch, Fred Isaac, Eric Chaim Kline, Barbara Leff, Paul Miller, Enid Sperber.

AJL-NYMA Chapter - Check out the website of the New York Metropolitan Area Chapter of the Association of Jewish Libraries. Workshops are listed under Past Events. You can download print materials, Power Point presentations, audio presentations. The most recent is the February 2008 Reference Workshop.

Internet and Jewish Internet Resources

The Internet (a very select list)

• Kathy Schrock's ABC's of Web Site Evaluation -- an educator lists and explains criteria for evaluation. http://www.kathyschrock.com/abceval/index.htm

• Online Searching, by Colleen Baker. Judaica Library Network of Metropolitan Chicago Newsletter. Summer 2003. http://home.earthlink.net/~ddstuhlman/jln-sum03.htm

• Search Engine Showdown -- The User's Guide to Web Searching. This award-winning website is loaded with helpful information about search engines, e.g. comparisons, analysis, reviews, news, how-to's, directories, special features. http://www.searchengineshowdown.com

• School Libraries on the Web -- Searching the Internet. This website includes an introduction to searching the Internet, search engines, subject indexes, and kid-safe search sites. http://www.sldirectory.com/search.html

The Jewish Internet (a very select list)

• Jewish History / American Jewish History websites - a selected list - by Larry Laufman, Ed.D.

• Index to Jewish Periodicals - for access to Jewish periodicals, including Judaica book reviews.

• Ekman, Rae. How to Run a Readathon (http://www.holysparks.com/readathon.html). For Library Tea Parties, write to author rae@holysparks.com [Source: AJL's Hasafran, October 13, 2003.] Rae Ekman is a Jewish artist, writer, master calligrapher, and librarian at Emek Hebrew Academy, North Hollywood, CA.

• Romm, Diane. The Jewish Guide to the Internet. 3rd Edition, Revised and Expanded. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, Inc., 2002. 359p. index. paperback. $30.00. Comprehensive guide to Jewish sites on the Internet by a librarian and AJL member. More than 1500 sites arranged in 136 subject areas. Lists over 375 Internet Host Sites in Israel. [Jason Aronson titles are now available through Roman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. <http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com/aronsonj/>

• Romm, Diane. Jewish Internet Guide.com (http://www.jewishinternetguide.com), 2003. A searchable website created by the author (a librarian and AJL member) to complement the 3rd edition of her book, The Jewish Guide to the Internet. The searchable site contains the entire text of the 3rd edition of the book, plus updates and additions of material added since the book's publication in 2002. Also, the website provides Internet links to Jewish search engines in English, Hebrew, and other languages and to institutions and individuals who maintain sizable websites with Jewish resources.

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Other Librarianship Resources (reference and selection tools, articles, online periodicals, other links)

Recent Conference Presentations and/or Handouts

California School Library Association - Conference - November 2007, Ontario, CA - handouts

California Learning Resource Network (at bottom of screen) -- free, high quality online reference resources (screened and selected by teacher librarians and classroom teachers). This is a Power Point presentation prepared by Peter Milbury for the California School Library Association's Annual Conference, November 15-18, 2007, in Ontario, CA.

Recent Selection Tools

Leff, Barbara. Co-author with Susan Freiband: Collection Development in Smaller Judaica Libraries: Resource Guide; and collaborator with Susan Freiband: Collection Development in Smaller Judaica Libraries: An Introduction and Guide. AJL, 2006. (available through AJL Publications)

Anti-Defamation League recommends fiction books on Israel for children K through 12th grade. Also check this topic on AJL's Jewish Valuesfinder.

Jewish Book Council – Jewish Book World, Jewish Book Annual, Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature, and National Jewish Book Awards 1949 to current.

Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, has awarded the following for 2006:
Caldecott Award to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children -- 2005 Caldecott Medal winner is Kitten's First Full Moon, by Kevin Henkes (Greenwillow Books / HarperCollinsPublishers).
Newbery Award to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children -- 2005 Newbery Medal winner is Kira-Kira, by Cynthia Kadohata (Atheneum Books for Young Readers / Simon & Schuster).

Batchelder Award to an American publisher for a children's book considered the most outstanding of those originally published in a foreign language and translated into English. The 2005 Batchelder Honor Book winner is Daniel Half Human and the Good Nazi, by David Chotjewitz, translated from the German by Doris Orgel (A Richard Jackson Book, Ahteneum Books for Young Readers / Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division). (This book is also an AJL Sydney Taylor Honor Book for 2004.)

• The Jewish Presence in Children's Literature (a special issue). The Lion and the Unicorn: A Critical Journal of Children's Literature. Vol. 27, No. 3, September 2003. Includes "Becoming an 'All-of-a-Kind' American: Sydney Taylor and Strategies of Assimilation" by June Cummins, pp. 324-343.

• "Libraries: Unsung Heroism" in The Inexhaustible Wellspring: Reaping the Rewards of Shtetl Life by Dr. Klepfisz Heszel (Devorah Publishing, 2003; 312p.; ISBN 1930143753) (pp. 303-312 for a brief history of Jewish libraries to the end of World War II). "Since the end of World War II, much as been written about the kinds of institutions that existed in Jewish Eastern Europe . . . but libraries have been almost completely neglected. Yes, libraries were important to the way of life in Eastern Europe. This is not to say that Jews first created libraries when their culture began to develop in Eastern Europe. Collections of religious and other books existed in antiquity and their importance was recognized even then. . . . " (p. 303).

• Social Networking (short video) -- to communicate with others -- explanation and links