Books: AJL announces 2011 reference, bibliography awards

The Research Libraries, Archives, and Special Collections Division of the Association of Jewish Libraries (AJL) has announced the 2011 winners of its Judaica Reference and Bibliography Awards.

The awards will be presented at the AJL’s 46th Annual Convention banquet, on Tuesday, June 21, 2011 at the Marriott Montréal Château Champlain (Montréal, Québec).

Tracing the Tribe is also delighted to have been chosen to speak on Sephardic research at the conference. I’m looking forward to seeing our Montreal cousins and gen friends during my visit.

Reference

-- The winner is The Encyclopedia of Jews in the Islamic World (Brill). Edited by Dr. Norman Stillman of the University of Oklahoma, the five-volume work is the first English-language reference that deals with a part of Jewish history that is obscure and inaccessible for many readers. It opens a new window into this world and will inevitably generate more research and interest in the field. An online version is currently available as well. For more information, click here.

-- The Eerdman's Dictionary of Early Judaism, edited by John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow, received an honorable mention. It is an essential reference in a field of study that has rapidly expanded in recent decades. For more information, click here.

Bibliography

-- The winner is The Bibliography of Jews in the Islamic World (Brill). Edited by María Angeles Gallego, Heather Bleaney and Pablo García Suárez, it is an important contribution to the study of Jews in the Islamic World due to its thematic and geographical scopes, especially considering the difficulties in covering such a diverse field and multitude of languages. For more information, click here.

Dr. Greta Silver (New York City) and Eric Chaim Kline (Los Angeles) sponsor the annual awards.

For more information on the awards, including past winners, click here.

The awards committee includes Michlean Amir (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum), Yoram Bitton (Columbia University), Rachel Leket-Mor (Arizona State University), Daniel Rettberg (Hebrew Union College, Cincinnati), Pinchas Roth (Hebrew University), Rachel Simon (Princeton University), and Daniel Scheide, chair (Florida Atlantic University).

The AJL promotes Jewish literacy through enhancement of libraries and library resources and through leadership for the profession and practitioners of Judaica librarianship, while fostering access to information, learning, teaching and research relating to Jews, Judaism, the Jewish experience and Israel.

For more information on the conference, visit the AJL site.