As part of its mission to serve the Jewish Studies scholarly community, JSTOR has engaged two initiatives to increase coverage of this field in the JSTOR archive. The first is to expand inclusion of Jewish Studies academic journals by including more international titles and expanding broad interdisciplinary coverage of the field. The second is to include periodicals in the Hebrew language. This second initiative was made possible in part through a grant-funded collaboration between JSTOR, the University of Haifa Library and the National Library of Israel, and began with a pilot project to digitize and test the complete back runs of four academic serials in Hebrew through the JSTOR platform, the first of its kind. Throughout the process, we have gained from the input and insights of library and faculty advisors in the Jewish scholarly community. Drawing on these two initiatives, JSTOR will soon launch a unique Jewish Studies collection, offering the full runs of key academic journals. Our intention over the coming years is to continue to build resources in this field to support research, teaching, and learning. we also seek to serve different communities of scholarship, from traditional higher education institutions to museums, theological seminaries and libraries. This presentation will report on findings learned through this pilot project on how readers of advanced Hebrew use digitized academic serials, provide an update on developing this resource to provide value to academic research libraries and other institutions, and invite librarians to participate in developing these resources further in JSTOR.

Presented by Toja Okoh at the 2012 AJL Conference in Pasadena, CA.

22 min 09 sec

Increasingly, the day-to-day reality of current events in the Middle East is documented not in the pages of printed newspapers, but through Facebook postings, tweets, Smartphone photos, and other informal ephemera material. The UCLA Library received a $3.4 million grant to digitize, preserve, and provide broad public access to print items, images, multimedia, and social networking resources produced in the Middle East, to offer primary sources to students and scholars. Mr. Strong discusses the challenges and opportunities in working with new forms of social media and other primary sources in real time and with international partners including the National Library of Israel.

Presented by Gary Strong at the 2012 AJL Conference in Pasadena, CA.

23 min 45 sec

Columbia's rare Judaica manuscript collection is the third largest in the United States, behind JTS and HUC, ranging from the 10th to the 20th century, from India to the Caribbean. Ms. Chesner gives a history of the collection, detail the stories found within it, and discuss ways they are promoting use and awareness of the collection.

Presented by Michelle Chesner at the 2012 AJL Conference in Pasadena, CA.

24 min 40 sec

Ms. Berger describes a project to digitize the Yeshiva University Archives' cantorial manuscripts colleciton, which includes compositions by well-known cantors such as Zeidel Rovner, as well as working notebooks used by cantors in their positions in synagogues.

Presented by Shulamith Berger at the 2012 AJL Conference in Pasadena, CA.

30 min 26 sec