Publications

Books (Authored and Edited), Monographs, Reports, and Book Chapters

Cross References in Catalogs, Indexes, and Thesauri: Rationale, Structure, Format, and Control. Final compuscript to be submitted to Information Today in Summer 2004. (Ca. 1,000 pages.) I am in the final stages of editing the text, completing the documentation, and securing permissions to reproduce illustrations.

Index to the Grolier Gazette, by Szilvia Szmuk. In January 2002, I edited the introduction and reviewed the entire index, making many suggestions for enhancing the structure and the format. I also arranged for a former indexing student of mine to implement the recommended changes. (By invitation.) The index is to be published by the Grolier Club. On Feb. 6, 2003, Dr. Szmuk informed me that the compuscript has been submitted for editing. On February 12, 2004, I was informed that the index should be published by the end of the year.

The Dictionary of Jewish Usage, by Sol Steinmetz. I edited sections of the book for the author, who is Executive Editor Emeritus of Random House Dictionaries. Editing completed June 28, 2001. (By invitation.) The book was originally scheduled to be published by Jason Aronson in 2003. The book was published by Rowman & Littlefield in 2005. 

"Index of Biblical and Rabbinical Passages Cited" and "Index of Subjects and Names" to: The Microcosm of Joseph Ibn Saddiq, with an English translation, introduction and notes by Jacob Haberman.  Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; London: Associated University Presses, July 2003, p. 165 - 217.  Besides indexing the book, I submitted six lengthy error reports to the editor, for which he expressed great appreciation. I am credited in the Preface, in addition to a byline at the head of each index.  The editor nominated the indexes for the H.W. Wilson/ASI Award for Excellence in Indexing.

Pinpo Pinpointing the Topic: Analysis of Entries in Book Indexes: Abstract, Outline, Illustrations, and Bibliography. Booklet prepared for a workshop presented June 1, 2001, at the conference of the American Society of Indexers.

FamilyFamily Redeemed: Essays on Family Relationships, by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, edited by David Shatz and Joel B. Wolowelsky. [New York]: Toras Horav Foundation, 2000. I am credited in the Preface (p. x) for being among those who shared their expertise with the editors. The first-named editor, who attended one of my St. John’s seminars on book indexing, consulted me at length regarding the difficulties of indexing this philosophical work.

Proposed Revision of the Classification of the MLA International Bibliography to Cover the Teaching of Language, Literature and Writing, submitted to Terence Ford, editor, March 29, 2000. 26 pages. (By invitation.)

Cumulative index to Judaica Librarianship, vols. 1-10. New York: Association of Jewish Libraries, [Dec.] 2000. vi, 24 pages. Prepared under my direction by Lisa Bonifacic, Research Assistant, with Cindex indexing software.  I also wrote the introduction (pages iii-v).

Contributions to a Feasibility Study for a Citation Index to Books, presented to Eugene Garfield, Institute for Scientific Information. August 31, 1999.  30 pages. This study was commissioned by Dr. Garfield, the inventor of Science Citation Index, who noted that citation indexes currently cover journals but not books. Given my expertise in book indexing, Dr. Garfield asked me to analyze the various reference formats of books and to discuss the complexity of indexing them.

Evaluation of the Thesauri of the MLA International Bibliography. August 26, 1999. 31 pages. This consulting report was enthusiastically received by the editor of the MLA Bibliography, who assured me that many of my suggestions will be implemented.  My recommendations for enhancing the interfaces to the online thesaurus were  conveyed to the vendors who load the MLA Bibliography.

Exhaustivity of Indexes: Books, Journals and Electronic Full Text: Abstract, Outline, Illustrations, and Bibliography. Booklet distributed at a workshop presented at the 31st Annual Conference of the American Society of Indexers, June 11, 1999, Indianapolis, Indiana.  40 pages.

Profiles of a Lost World: Memoirs of East European Jewish Life before World War II, by Hirsz Abramowicz. Detroit: Wayne State University Press in cooperation with YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, [Spring] 1999. I am credited in the Acknowledgments (p. 7) for having “contributed materially and intellectually to the making of this book.” The author’s daughter, who coedited the book, consulted me frequently on questions of bibliographic format and transliteration of Hebrew and Yiddish.

Editor, A Book of Blessings.  Rabbi Miles B. Cohen, Grammarian. Bronx, NY, Feb. 1998.  (The book includes an original Hebrew typeface, commissioned by and designed in consultation with me.  I wrote the Preface (pp. vii-x) and edited the bilingual text, checking every diacritic in the Hebrew  liturgy.)

Indexes to: The Vindication of Judaism:  The Polemics of the Hertz Pentateuch, by Harvey Warren Meirovich.  Hoboken, NJ: published by KTAV  for the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, [Nov.] 1998. (In  addition  to  editing  the Index of  Biblical  and  Rabbinic Citations [p. 255-261] as  well as compiling the Name and  Subject  Index [p. 263-304]  I contributed  to  correction  of the  proofs:  in  particular,  by reviewing   the   transliteration   of   Hebrew and   resolving inconsistencies  in  bibliographic  references.) By invitation.

Index Editor, Guide to the YIVO Archives, compiled and edited by Fruma Mohrer and Marek Web. Armonk, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1998. Index: pp. 325-400.  (I am acknowledged both for bibliographical assistance and for "an in-depth review of the index" on p. ix. The manuscript of the index which I reviewed was 300 pages long. At a reception for this book held on March 8, 1998, the speakers emphasized the importance of the detailed index in facilitating access to the archive of 22,000,000 documents.  By invitation.)

Foreword to Cataloging Hebrew Materials in the Online Environment:  A Comparative Study of American and Israeli Approaches, by Susan S. Lazinger and Elhanan Adler.  Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, [Feb.] 1998.  Foreword: pp. xi-xii.  The book includes citations to many of my works and reproduces tables from several of my articles.  Much of the information in the book comes from the journal I edited, Judaica Librarianship. (By invitation.)

Can You Recommend a Good Book on Indexing?:  Collected Reviews on the Organization of Information, by Bella Hass Weinberg.  With a foreword by Linda K. Fetters and an index by Susan Klement.  Medford, NJ: Information Today for the American Society of Indexers, [May] 1998. 161 pages.

The Earliest Hebrew Citation Indexes. Article originally published in Journal of the American Society for Information Science (April 1997);  reprinted, with a Postscript in: Historical Studies in Information Science, ed. by Trudi Bellardo Hahn and Michael Buckland. Medford, NJ: Information Today, 1998, p. 51-64. (By invitation.)

Journals Edited

Complete Serials

Judaica Librarianship.  New York: Association of Jewish Libraries, 1983-2000. I was Editor in Chief through Volume 10. Vol. 11 no. l in press. I worked with the new editor on the management of the journal.

The Proceedings of the Annual Convention of the Association of Jewish Libraries were continued as an electronic publication from vol. 36; I offered advice on the format of these, as I had done for the print Proceedings in prior years.

Proceedings of the 35th Annual Convention of the Association of Jewish Libraries. New York: Association of Jewish Libraries, [Summer] 2001. I am acknowledged in the Preface “for critiquing our Proceedings and making it a better publication.” (I submitted extensive recommendations for enhancing the format.)

MLA International Bibliography of Books and Articles on the Modern Languages and Literatures, 1999. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 2000. In the summer of 1999, I prepared a report evaluating the thesauri of the bibliography that included many recommendations for the redesign of the printed product. These were very well received by the editor, and some of the recommendations were implemented in the 1999 Bibliography. Therefore I was sent a complimentary copy. I have been informed that other recommendations of mine will be implemented in future volumes.

Refereeing

I receive numerous manuscripts  to referee for the Journal of the American Society for Information Science. I often submit extensive suggestions for revision. I then receive a revised manuscript to review and submit further suggestions for enhancement of the paper.  This journal periodically publishes a list of referees.  The most recent one is in vol. 54 no. 8 (2003); I am listed on p. 703.

“Open-System vs. Closed-System Indexing: A Vital Distinction,” by Susan Klement. At the author's request, I edited several editions of this article, which appeared in The Indexer, vol. 23 no 1(April 2002), p. 23 -31.  I am acknowledged on p. 31.

Journal Articles and Conference Proceedings

Indexing Advice in Publications on Paper Management.  The Indexer  vol. 23 no. 4 (October 2003), p. 218-223.  (Refereed journal.)

The Index of a Sixteenth-Century Architecture Book. The Indexer, vol. 23 no. 3 (April 2003), p. 150-158. An addendum that I submitted on April 7, 2003 appeared in vol. 24 no. 1 (April 2004) issue. (Refereed journal.)

Indexes and Paradise. The Indexer, vol. 23 no. 2 (October 2002), p. 82. (Refereed journal.)

Closing the Circle: Automated Authority Control and the Multiscript YIVO Catalog (with Joan M. Aliprand). International Cataloguing and Bibliographic Control, vol. 31 no. 3 (July/September 2002), p. 44-47. (By invitation. Lead article.)

New Course Design: Classification Schemes and Information Architecture. (Description of a St. John’s University course, submitted April 2002.) Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science & Technology, vol. 28 no. 5 (June/July 2002), p. 14-17. (By invitation.)

- The editor of Key Words: Bulletin of the American Society of Indexers expressed interest in publishing an updated version of the article. This appeared as the cover story, “Feature Article: Classification Schemes and Information Architecture,” of the Nov./Dec. 2002 issue, vol. 10 no. 6, p. 152-156. (By invitation).

Handouts of the seminar on Thesaurus Design for Semantic Information Management, April 16, 2002. Distributed by the Division of Library and Information Science, St. John’s University.

Index Structures in Early Hebrew Biblical Word Lists: Preludes to the First Latin Concordances. The Indexer: The International Journal of Indexing, vol. 22 no. 4 (Oct. 2001), p. 178-186.  (Refereed journal.)

Metadata: An Introduction for Judaica Librarians. Proceedings of the 35th Annual Convention of the Association of Jewish Libraries. New York: Association of Jewish Libraries, [Summer] 2001, p. 56-62; abstract, p. 249. (By invitation.)

Hines Award Presentation to Linda Fetters, June 3, 2001, ASI Conference, Boston. Key Words: Bulletin of the American Society of Indexers,  vol. 9 no. 4 (July/Aug. 2001), p. 106-107. (By invitation.)

Who Invented the Index?: An Agenda for Research on the Information Access Features of Latin and Hebrew Manuscripts.  Paper submitted May 2000, for the Proceedings  of the 66th General Conference of the International Federation of Library Associations, Jerusalem, August 2000. Distributed at the conference. 4 pages. (Refereed.)

Eulogy for Dina Abramowicz, Librarian of YIVO Institute for Jewish Research abridged and translated into Yiddish. YIVO News no. 190, Summer 2000, p. [5]. (The original text was in English; I edited the translation.)

Book Indexes in France: Medieval Specimens and Modern Practices. The Indexer, vol. 22 no. 1  (April 2000), p. 2-13.

Indexes to the Journals of the American Jewish Historical Society: Significance, Coverage, and Format. Reviews of: An Index to Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society, vols. 21-50 (Brooklyn: Carlson, 1994) and An Index to American Jewish Historical Quarterly/American Jewish History, vols. 51-80 (Brooklyn: Carlson, 1995). 3 vols. Judaica Librarianship vol. 10 no. 1-2 [Published April 2000]. (By invitation; refereed.)

The Structures of Early Hebrew Reference Books: Canonical, Alphabetical, Classified. (Camera-ready paper based on a slide-lecture presented at the Convention of the Association of Jewish Libraries, Boca Raton, June 1999.)  Proceedings of the 34th Annual Convention of the Association of Jewish Libraries. New York: Association of Jewish Libraries, [March] 2000, p. 120-128.

The ABCs of Indexing in the New Millennium, Part I: Information Amateurism in Y2K. Key Words: Bulletin of the American Society of Indexers, vol. 8 no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 2000), p. 1, 20.  (Cover story.  By invitation.)

ASIS ’99: A Filtered Summary for Indexers. Key Words: Bulletin of the American Society of Indexers, vol. 8 no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 2000), p. 12-20. (By invitation.)

How Accurate are Hebraica Catalogs and Bibliographies?: Tracing the Case of Moreh Tsedek. (Abbreviated version of a slide-lecture presented at the Association of Jewish Libraries Convention, June 1998.)  Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Convention of the Association of Jewish Libraries. New York: Association of Jewish Libraries, [October] 1999, p. 66-71.

Exhaustivity of Indexes: Books, Journals and Electronic Full Text: Summary of a Workshop Presented at the 1999 ASI Annual Conference. Key Words: The Newsletter of the American Society of Indexers vol. 7 no. 5 (Sept./Oct. 1999), p. 1, 6-19. (Cover story. By invitation.)

Indexes and Religion: Reflections on Research in the History of Indexes. The Indexer, vol. 21 no. 3 (April 1999), p. 111-118.  (Refereed.)

Improved Internet Access: Guidance from Research on Indexing and Classification (summary of a panel session, for which I served as reactor).  Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science, vol. 25 no. 2 (Dec/Jan. 1999), p. 26-29.  (By invitation.)

Indexing After the Millennium: Future Conditional. The Indexer vol. 21 no. 2 (Oct. 1998), p. 62-63. (By invitation.)

Hines Award Acceptance Speech. Key Words: The Newsletter of the American Society of Indexers.  vol. 6 no. 4 (July/Aug. 1998), p. 11-12. (By invitation.)

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Internet Search Engines: Dr. Candy Schwartz's ASIS Seminar.  Metadata by Bella Hass Weinberg.  Key Words: The Newsletter of the American Society of Indexers vol. 6 no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 1998), p.  1, 9-13.  (Cover story.)

The Earliest Hebrew Citation Indexes.  Journal of the American Society for Information Science, special topic issue: History of Documentation and Information Science, vol. 48 no. 4 (April 1997),  p. 318-330. (Refereed.)

Complexity in Indexing Systems - Abandonment and Failure: Implications for Organizing the Internet.  In: ASIS '96: Proceedings of the 59th ASIS Annual Meeting vol. 33 ([Oct.] 1996), p. 84-90. (Refereed.)

Ambiguities in the Romanization of Yiddish.  Judaica Librarianship vol. 9 no. 1-2, p. 58-74 [published Aug. 1996]. (Refereed.)  Reprinted as a monograph.

Numerous Abstracts, Reviews, Editorials, and Letters to Professional Journals

Electronic Publications

Thesaurus Design for Semantic Information Management. Abstract of a seminar presented for the Special Libraries Association at its Annual Conference in New York, June 8, 2003. Mounted on the Web site of the Association, February 2003.

“Summaries and Reflections of Thesaurus Design for Semantic Information Management, a day-long seminar led by Prof. Bella Hass Weinberg in New York on April 16, 2002,” by Daniel Lovins.  I edited three drafts of this summary. Published in the electronic version of Cataloging & Classification Quarterly vol. 36 no. 1 (2002), in  the Cataloging News section. (Accessed Feb. 2003).

Variant Record Structures in the Cataloging of Judaica Non-book Materials: Implications for the Primacy of MARC. Paper presented at the Convention of the Association of Jewish Libraries, Denver, Colorado, June 2002. Edited version in the electronic proceedings mounted on the Web site of the Association of Jewish Libraries, Nov. 2002. PDF file: 14 pages.

Predecessors of Scientific Indexing Structures in the Domain of Religion. Abstract of a presentation at the Second Conference on the History and Heritage of Scientific and Technical Information Systems, mounted on the Web site of the Chemical Heritage Foundation, October 2002.  –The edited full paper is also scheduled to be published electronically.

New Course Design: Classification Schemes and Information Architecture. Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology vol. 28 no. 5, June/July 2002. http://www.asis.org/Bulletin/Jun-02/weinberg.html (The electronic edition is mounted some time after the print edition appears; accessed Aug. 5, 2002.)

Acceptance Speech of Shimeon Brisman [for the 2000 AJL Reference Book Award], read by Bella Hass Weinberg, with comments.  Proceedings of the 36th Annual AJL [Association of Jewish Libraries] Convention, [May] 2002.

An Index of the Indexer: The Unseen Mission of Dr. Bella Hass Weinberg, by Stephen Gelfman. I was interviewed for this biography in the Summer of 2001 and edited the draft. The final version was mounted on the Web page of St. John’s University Libraries in Sept. 2001. (By invitation.)

Closing the Circle: Automated Authority Control and the Multiscript YIVO Catalog. Preprint of a paper presented with Joan M. Aliprand at the 67th IFLA Council and General Conference, Boston, August 2001. Compact Disk distributed Aug. 2001.

Cumulative index to Judaica Librarianship.  Mounted on the Web site of the Association of Jewish Libraries Spring 2001.

Indexing Books and Reference Works: A Structural Approach. Abstract of a seminar held May 22, 2001. The description on the Web site of the American Society of Indexers. Stimulates many orders for tapes and handouts.

Who Invented the Index? An Agenda for Research on the Information Access Features of Latin and Hebrew Manuscripts. Proceedings of the IFLA Conference, Jerusalem, August 2000.  IFLANET. Electronic preprint mounted May 29, 2000.

Judaica Librarianship, vol. 9. Library Literature Full Text.  Through my efforts, the text of this volume became available on WilsonWeb, Spring 2000. The back issues were subsequently processed and are now available.  The Association of Jewish Libraries is receiving royalties from the H. W. Wilson Company.

Judaica Librarianship, vol. 1-10. Table of Contents. Association of Jewish Libraries Web site. Mounted December 1999.

Complexity in indexing Systems - Abandonment and Failure: Implications for Organizing the Internet.  11- page printout.