The National Library of Israel
In 2008 the Jewish National University Library officially became the National Library of Israel. A few days ago the project moved forward a little bit more.
Israel’s new National Library will be constructed between the Knesset and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, the cabinet decided last week. The decision, made at the same meeting that approved the plan for preserving national heritage sites, is part of a broader project to refurbish the government offices’ compound.
…
Most of the funding for the project – estimated at half a billion shekels – will be provided by the Rothschild Foundation (Yad Hanadiv). The foundation was the primary benefactor of both the Knesset and the Supreme Court buildings in Jerusalem’s Givat Ram neighborhood. Slated to open by 2016, the new library will be built beside the Finance Ministry in a pine forest overlooked by the Knesset. The building will replace the 1960s-era facility on Hebrew University’s Givat Ram campus, which houses the more than 5 million books in the National Library collection.
The Association of Jewish Libraries has posted podcasts of two presentations related to the National Library of Israel. Elhanan Adler spoke on Ten Years of Digitization at the National Library of Israel. Adler gives some background to the numerous digitization projects that have already been undertaken and challenges for the future. Two things from his talk which are worth noting are that an “Israeli branch” of JSTOR will hopefully be available during the next year. Articles from a number of Hebrew journals will be linked to through RAMBI and assumingly, JSTOR itself. The other point is on the lighter side. Apparently the initiative for the digitization of Talmud MSS came from the Department of Talmud itself. It seems that the students were too lazy to make the trip from Mount Scopus to Givat Ram, so this was an appropriate solution. One complaint that I have about the Talmud MSS project is that there is no option for zooming in on the text. Shmuel Har Noy’s talk was on Challenges of the New National Library of Israel.