Salon Jewish Studies Blog

The exhibition Sent to their death, the deportation of Jews, Roma and Sinti from Hamburg 1940 to 1945 (Kunsthaus [Arthouse], Hamburg] "is designed with a conceptual focus on the perspectives of more than 7,500 deportees and what happened to them at the sites of deportation. It includes video and audio interviews with survivors, photos, documents such as letters and diaries, and original memento items. These exhibition items help give back to the victims their faces and their life stories, which have been obscured by the anonymous lists, standardized forms, and the administrative operations of the perpetrators, with their seemingly 'correct' division of labor.
" (www.deportationsausstellung.hamburg.de)

(via H-Soz-u-Kult)

The Rothschild Haggadah (Ms. Heb 4° 6130; also called : "Murphy Haggadah") is a "Passover Haggadah according to the Ashkenazi rite." [The] Manuscript on parchment. Northern Italy. ca. 1450. 47 fols. 33.5 x 23 cm. Ashkenazi square script. Copied and illuminated by (or in the workshop of) the famous scribe-illuminator Joel b. Simeon. [...]
[The Haggadah] has a fascinating history. Until 1939 it was in the possession of the Rothschild family, but during World War II it was looted by the Nazis and disappeared. After the war, the Haggadah was acquired by a distinguished Yale alumnus, Dr. Fred Towsley Murphy who bequeathed it to the Yale University Library in 1948. In 1980 it was identified as a Rothschild manuscript and returned to its former owners who donated it to the Jewish National and University Library (now the National Library of Israel) where it is now preserved."(JNUL Digitzed Manuscripts Website via H-Judaic)

"The Michigan State University Library and the MSU Museum have partnered to create an online collection of some of the most influential and important American cookbooks from the late 18th to early 20th century. The goal of this project is to make these materials available to a wider audience. Digital images of the pages of each cookbook are available as well as full-text transcriptions and the ability to search within the books, across the collection, in order to find specific information." The online collection contains following historic Jewish cookbooks:

(clipping from Bransten family scrapbook, Judah L Magnes Museum collections)

"The Judah L. Magnes museum is a museum of art and history focused on the Jewish experience located in Berkeley, California. Since late 2007 the museum has been posting their digital assets both on their website and on their Flickr account. On Flickr, all of the high resolution images are licensed under our [Creative Commons] Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license. [...]

More information on Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org

(front-cover of the catalog Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theater)

The Jewish Museum, New York presented "the first exhibition devoted to the extraordinary artwork created for Russian Jewish theater productions in the 1920s and 1930s. The exhibition will bring to light a remarkable period in the early years of the Soviet Union when innovative visual artists, including Marc Chagall, Natan Altman, and Robert Falk joined forces with avant-garde playwrights, actors, and theatrical producers to create a theater experience with extraordinary mass appeal. Through paintings, costume and set designs, posters, photographs, film clips and theater ephemera - many of which have never been exhibited before- Chagall and the Artists of the Russian Jewish Theater, 1919-1949 will capture an exhilarating but fleeting moment in the cultural history of the Soviet Union."

Andrea Kirsh wrote an exciting article about "a fascinating exhibition" in theartblog.org

Even if the exhibition moves to the Contemporary Jewish Museum (San Francisco, from April 25 to September 7, 2009), selected artifacts and extensive information on the subject can be found on the Website of the Jewish Museum, New York

Further Online Exhibitions at N.Y.C. Jewish Museum are:

1) Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940-1976

2) Off the Wall: Artists at Work

3) From The New Yorker to Shrek: The Art of William Steig

4) Camille Pissarro: Impressions of City and Country

5) The Sculpture of Louise Nevelson: Constructing a Legend

6) Dateline Israel: New Photography and Video Art

March 26, 2009, Christopher Leigton (Voices of antisemtism - a podcast series at the U.S. Holcaust Memorial Museum, Washington)

"I came to Jewish-Christian relations in large measure because my closest friends belonged to different religious traditions. And they had a way of raising doubts and generating confusion that simply had to be addressed if I was going to hold fast to what my ancestors had passed on to me. Christians and Jews share some of the same narratives. And the question that haunts us is whether we can learn to honor the distinct ways that we each read these stories, and dismantle those understandings that have given rise to very serious and anguished relations between our communities. And so, the challenge of living in a religiously plural world is developing the habits and reflexes that allow us to celebrate that diversity and be enlarged and expanded by understandings that don’t belong to us.
For centuries, Christians have made triumphal claims that were profoundly dismissive of those who do not agree with them. And as a result, the church can become ingrown. It can fail to develop an aptitude for self-criticism. And if there is not an ability to see oneself through the eyes of the other, then one ultimately ends up blinded to larger truths that might inspire us to do better and to improve and to ennoble our tradition.
I think that what happens through the interfaith dialogue when it’s done well, is that one has the rude realization that the tradition that one thought one knew, that one has been living, is far more mysterious and complex than one ever imagined, and that one may have to go back and learn how to reread and reinterpret it anew. So in a sense, to live in a tradition is always to call it into question." (fragment of the transcript)

"The Israel Antiquities Authority says archaeologists have discovered a Byzantine-era bathhouse in the south of the country dating back more than 1,500 years.
Archaeologist Gregory Serai headed the excavation and says the impressive size of bathhouse, 20 by 20 yards (meters), showed the area, between Beersheba and Gaza, was more heavily populated in the Byzantine era then previously thought.
Serai added in Wednesday’s statement that the evidence found at the site shows “the villagers based their economy on wine production.”
The statement said the bathhouse was destroyed in a cave-in and the site became a garbage dump.
The dig precedes work to lay a railroad track through the area." (Jewish Breaking News - Private Blog By A Few Jewish News Reporters via http://twitter.com/JBN)

"Tuning Baghdad brings together a growing archive of rare video footage, audio clips and historical information on Iraqi Jewish musicians and the music scene that was displaced from Baghdad in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The last generation of Iraqi Jewish musicians who performed in Baghdad, now in their 70s and 80s, represent an era when an unusually large number of the Iraqi-Jews were composing and performing Arabic music. For decades, these musicians were the national teachers and beloved performers of Iraq’s traditional maqams and modern compositions on Iraq’s National Broadcast Station.
Many of these Iraqi musicians and enthusiasts now live in Israel, England or North America where they trade home-made cassettes and organize musical parties at which this international community comes together. The musicians continue to play and produce an Arabic repertoire of Iraqi folk songs, popular Egyptian and Lebanese songs as well as Iraqi-Jewish ceremonial songs at weddings and Bar-Mitzvahs. The video chapters on this website feature intimate performances, conversations in Iraqi-Jewish dialect, and rehearsals with key musicians, fans, historians and ethnomusicologists. They also feature home-movies of ‘Charlghis’ from the 1970s until today. The podcasts and links accompanying each video act as tangents, providing an expanded layer to the performers, the songs, and their lyrics. To accommodate this complex scene, the audio/visual component will be regularly updated with donations of rare cassettes and footage."

Up to now, following podcasts including additional audio material are available in the categories (no direct links available) listed below:

1) Audiotopia ("various Arabic music jam sessions by Iraqi-Jewish musicians now living in Israel") - fifteen audio-tracks of Imam and Naim;

2) On the maqam ("records some attempts to explain the eastern scale of music called the ‘maqam’, to Western listeners") four audio-tracks of Yair Dalal, Elias Shasha and Abraham Salman;

3) Musicans in Iraq ("a chapter narrated by Yeheskel Kojaman one of the few ethnomusicologists who has first-hand experience and knowledge of the popular music scene in Iraq before the emigration of the Jewish population") two audio-tracks of Rashid Al-Qundarchi and Yakub Al-Imari

4) Life of the party ("a compilation of excerpts from home movies taken at ‘charlghis’ or house-parties in the [Jewish] diaspora from the 1970s until the 2000s")four audio-tracks (incl. mixed tapes) of Sol Basha and Abdel Halim Hafez

5) Other features a radio interview with Regine Basha and Julieta Aranda about Radio Baghdad as well as two recordings "Babylonian Selihot" produced by Yakhin Hakal

(tuningBaghdad.net via http://twitter.com/teruah)

1,045 meters of recovered inventory from the Cologne Historical Archive's collection (CHA) (Koelner Stadtanzeiger March 20, 2009 via Archivalia)
1045 meters of the (former) 27 shelf-kilometers Cologne Historical Archive inventory have been recovered. It seems little but means in figures that 1000 recovery tubs (each 1 m material), 20 lattice boxes (for wet material, each 1,5 m material) have been filled with findings from the rubble.
Among this were two Albertus Magnus handwritings, four of the Weinsberg books (16th century) und parts of the 550 Schreinsbücher (13th-18th century) also parts of the Ratsprotokolle (constitution and administration documents of the Imperial City from the Middle Ages until Early Modern Times). 50 outsized deeds, valuable individual pieces of the Haupturkundenarchiv (central deeds archive) were also recovered.
The discovered documents of modern times are mostly parts and pieces: personal papers of the former Lord Mayor Ernst Schwering and the city treasurer Billstein, inventory of Lord Majors Cologne after 1945, City Archive Porz (postwar period) and pieces of postwar municipal documents.

The project holocaust.cz (English short version available) developed by the Terezin Initiative Institute aims to provide information on the history of the Holocaust (and related information) to the Czech public, including interviews with survivors, documents and texts. holocaust.cz was especially designed for use in Czech schools with the focus on the history of the "Final Solution" in Czech Lands and of the Terezin Ghetto.

"The sixth Early Modern Workshop will focus on the topic of “Reading across Cultures: The Jewish Book and Its Readers in the Early Modern Period.” The workshop will be held at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies at Harvard University from Sunday, August 23, 2009 and to Tuesday, August 25, 2009. The keynote speaker will be Professor Ann Blair (Harvard University).
The proposed workshop aims to understand more deeply the developments in reading within Jewish society, as well as the impact the Jewish book may have had on culture in early modern Europe among both Jews and Christians. Recent studies, mostly on France, England, and Italy, have focused on the people behind “the book” – not only the author, but also those involved in book production and distribution, as well as the readers. As Guiglielmo Cavallo and Roger Chartier have argued, the text is fixed, whereas reading is ephemeral and creative. This workshop will seek to open a discussion of the culture of reading in Jewish society, as well as of the reading of Jewish books in Christian society, during a period of rapid cultural transformation. It will bring existing scholarship on the history of reading in Christian Europe to bear on the subject of Jewish reading. For example, scholars in this realm have highlighted the importance of medieval monastic culture for the development of silent reading, which in the early modern period became normalized within a broader reading community. What were the different or parallel developments within Jewish society, with its very different institutions and conventions of learning? How did print and access to books affect readers? Did it facilitate new reading communities? Did it modify existing reading traditions? And did it affect the ways of reading? How did authorities seek to control or prevent access to new texts, and how did these measures affect readers?" (Early Modern Bulletin)

Addition Information via H-Judaic Digest: "Up to 5 graduate students will attend and receive a fellowship covering travel, accommodation, and
(kosher) meals. Candidates should send their C.V. and a short abstract (not longer than 2 pages) of the dissertation project to Magda Teter at mteter@wesleyan.edu by May 15, 2009. The decision will be made by May 31."

"Princeton University has placed a new digital library of 200 Islamic manuscripts online for scholars to consult and study. [...]
These manuscripts were selected from some 9,500 volumes of Islamic manuscripts in Arabic, Persian, Ottoman Turkish and other languages of the Muslim world in the University Library's Department of Rare Books and Special Collections. Princeton's extraordinary holdings constitute the premier collection in the Western Hemisphere and among the finest in the world, according to Don Skemer, curator of manuscripts.
The digitized manuscripts date from the early centuries of Islam until the fall of the Ottoman Empire. They originated in all parts of the Islamic world, from Moorish Spain and northern Africa in the West, through the Middle East, and to India and Indonesia in the East. Subject coverage is fairly encyclopedic, including history, biography, philosophy and logic, theology (based both on the Quran and tradition), law and jurisprudence, language, literature, book arts and illustration, magic and occult sciences, astrology, astronomy, mathematics, medicine, and other aspects of the spiritual and intellectual life of the Islamic world.
While the digital library emphasizes rare or unique texts of academic research interest, it also includes a selection of Persian illuminated manuscripts and Mughal miniatures, such as a magnificent 18th-century Indian album of miniatures and calligraphy.
Princeton expects to add more manuscripts to the digital library in the future, besides producing the online bibliographic descriptions." (News at Princeton via Archivesopen)

Some of you maybe noticed that we work on Salon Jewish Studies http://international-js.blogspot.com since a few days. After redesigning the layout, we plan to add a lot of new features and improvements on the structure of the whole directory. The working process will take min. 3 or 4 month. (hopefully)
If you have any questions on that, please feel free to contact us via email: info@elbogen.org.
Also use this email adress, if you want to get involved somehow in the whole project. We are looking forward to hearing from you.

yours

Frank

March 22, 2009

"The black hole of history", Die Sueddeutsche focuses in the article Das Schwarze Loch der Geschichte (March 14, 2009) on different personal perspectives relating to the Cologne archive collapse (via Archivalia):
Ten days ago on a sunny day, Cologne sunk in darkest night: 65000 deeds, 26 shelf-kilometers files, 500000 photos, 780 bequests/personal paper collections – 1200 years old memory of the city was buried under rubble in a few seconds. (…)
Hans Bender is one of the 780 donors of his personal papers. For many years, he published the probably most important postwar literature-journal “Akzente”, besides prose, poetry and own works. 27000 documents of him, including letter exchanges with the whole postwar authors that were a comment to the federal republican literature, were stored in this archive. (…)
Dominik Haffner is one of the Marburg referenda says, while putting shredded pieces of a 17th century handwriting away, he does not believe that even 20% will be rescued. (…)
He and his colleagues are not to look that the material closely, because they are working against time: As soon as the wet material reaches air (out of the rubble), it must be brought to the freezing storage room within 14 hours, otherwise mildew will develop. (…)
Eberhard Illner, for all his interlocutors the archive is not visible anymore, but the former head of department can walk through it in his imagination. During the talk, he repeats that the papers of Hans Meyers were on the 3rd floor and Günter Wands’ papers on the 5th floor in the back. Illner (now archivist in Wuppertal) had worked in CHA for 22 years, he established four of the six stores, during the talk he starts crying several times. Since the beginning of 2008, he had noticed and reported defects and disruptions at the building without be taken serious. He now is called a denigrator of the “archival guild”, because he pointed out his information to the public after the collapse and is alleged to have broken his official discretion.

Koelner Stadtanzeiger reports on action force at the scene on March 20, 2009 (via Archivalia)
For the first time, since the collapse of the archive building in Cologne (CHA) on March 3rd, the rescue teams of the firefighter department, the volunteer firefighters and the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW) will take a one day break on Sunday. The work will be continued on Monday at 7 a.m., said Daniel Leupold from the firefighter department. On today’s Saturday, 60 supporters – like all past days – will be working until the onset of dark around 7 p.m.
Strenuously, they pull files, deeds and other valuable subjects belonging to the CHA inventory out of the rubble. On Friday, the supporters found much material from the 20th century, under it comments on the German Empire Constitution (Deutsche Reichsverfassung) dated 1918. On Thursday, 14 truck loadings had been recovered. In the storage hall (Cologne outside district) where the loadings of rubble and material are brought to, dozens of supporters are searching for material that is in a restorable condition.
The action force at the collapsed building needs to work carefully to minimize the risk of injury which is very high, says Leupold. So far two men were hit by stones: One man of the THW had a concrete piece slid against his leg, he got outpatient treatment. A stone hit the shoulder of a firefighter but recovered quick and returned to work.

In 2005 the Stanford University Libraries aquired from the antiquarian bookseller Eliasaf Robinson a collection on the early history of Tel Aviv. By now, significant portions of this collection are digitized and accessible online. Concentrating on materials that date before 1948, the collection includes books, pamphlets, journals, documents, photographs, posters, maps, architectural plans, and ephemera relating to the history of the „First Hebrew City“. Part of the collection are also several Ottoman land deeds (kushans) for lots purchased in 1909 by the first Jewish settlers, who built Tel Aviv as a new Jewish suburb outside of the Arab city of Jaffa.

Over Thirty-five Passover Haggadot will be displayed , between March 21-April 15, 2009 at Kresge Art Museum. The exhibition The Story of Exodus: The Passover Haggadah shows artifacts from the Michigan State University (MSU) libaries special collections, which contain "450,000 printed works, numerous manuscript and archival collections, and an extensive collection of ephemera." (MSU Lib.) [...] "At the MSU Main Library’s Special Collections, historically important 20th century examples will be on view, ranging from consumer-product and feminist Haggadot to those from Israeli kibbutzim.
Related events are a discussion of Geraldine Brooks’ “The People of the Book” at 5:30 p.m. April 1, led by Marc Bernstein, Jewish Studies and College of Arts and Letters, and a gallery talk on collecting Jewish heritage and illustrated Haggadot at noon April 13, led by Constance Harris, author, collector and donor of Haggadot." (MSU News)

Conference proceeding of "Geschichte und Kultur der Juden in Schwaben" [History and Culture of the Jews in Schwaben], organized by Heimatpflege des Bezirks Schwaben (November 14-15, 2008, Irsee, Germany) available on H-Soz-u-Kult.

Timetable:

Tagungsbericht Geschichte und Kultur der Juden in Schwaben. 20. Tagung der Heimatpflege des Bezirks Schwaben. 14.11.2008-15.11.2008, Irsee. In: H-Soz-u-Kult, 21.03.2009, .

The Landesarchiv Baden-Wuerttemberg (Stuttgart) [State Archive Baden-Wuerttemberg] provides access to Personenstandsregister of the Jewish communities in Wuertemberg, Baden and Hohenzollern:

Online Finding Aid Invent. J 386

"Die Standesregister der jüdischen Gemeinden, die in Baden und Württemberg seit dem 19. Jahrhundert geführt worden waren und vor Einrichtung der Standesämter die wichtigste genealogische Quelle darstellen, wurden 1942 vom damaligen Reichssippenamt eingezogen , um sie zentral in Schloss Rathsfeld in Thüringen auf Mikrofilm aufnehmen zu lassen. Diese Filme überstanden die letzten Kriegstage, im Gegensatz zu den Standesregistern, die seitdem als verloren gelten müssen. [...]" (News Landesarchiv BW March 4, 2009)

The Archivnachrichten Landesarchiv Baden-Württemberg [Archive News State Archive Baden-Wuerttemberg] No. 38, March 2009 (PDF) focuses on Jewish Historical Sources. The section "Fragmente Juedischen Lebens" [fragments of Jewish life] contains 21 articles.

"Archive sind getreue Zeugen ihrer Zeit. In der schriftlichen Überlieferung spiegelt sich authentisch und unmittelbar die jeweilige Epoche wider. Was im Allgemeinen gilt, trifft in bedrückenderWeise gerade auch für die Überlieferung zur deutschjüdischen Geschichte zu. Peter Honigmann, der Leiter des Zentralarchivs zur Erforschung der Geschichte der Juden in Deutschland, bilanziert nüchtern in diesem Heft: „Flucht und Verfolgung haben nicht nur menschliches Leid bewirkt, sie haben auch die Überlieferung der schriftlichen Zeugnisse einer langen deutschjüdischen Geschichte erheblich durcheinander gebracht.“ Nur bruchstückhaft sind die Quellen überliefert, die zudem jüdisches Leben zumeist aus christlicher Perspektive schildern oder die Sichtweise von Verwaltungen wiedergeben, deren Aufgabe es war, die Handlungsmöglichkeiten jüdischer Bürgerinnen und Bürger zu reglementieren und einzuengen, bis hin zu der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus,wo sie Entrechtung,Verfolgung und Mord rganisierten und dokumentierten. [...]" (Editorial)

The lecutre was held by Prof. Sue Vice on the topic "False Testimony" March (17, 2009)

"In this talk, Sue Vice explores the phenomenon of false Holocaust testimony and ask two questions: first, whether these inventions are part of a wider phenomenon of invented victimhood; second, if false testimony about the Holocaust is different from other kinds of imposture, and is a form of representation which is only to be expected as the Holocaust stops being an event within living memory."

"Ten times worse than in Weimar", Michael Knoche, director of Anna Amalia Library in Weimar, caught the speaker’s eye (sueddeutsche.de March 19, 2009 via Archivalia)

…the state of the material is totally mixed. Some documents were covered and protected by the rubble others were destroyed by it.
Up to now, it is uncertain how much of the inventory can be rescued: Some experts assume 20%, optimists suspect 50%. The recurrence of both valuable Albertus Magnus handwritings gives hope. In any case, a majority of single pieces will be rescued rather than inventoried material groups. Scientific research will be made difficult thereby.
The general mindlessness dealing with our written cultural possessions must come to an end. The Elbe flood water in Dresden 2002, the fire in the Herzogin Anna Amalia Library 2004 and the Cologne Historical Archive building’s collapse 2009, obviously pandered by negligence, are three warning symbol (Menetekel); the Biblical king Belsazar only needed one to understand the warning.

Former Summaries
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse IX, Tuesday March 18th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse VIII, Tuesday March 17th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse VII, Tuesday March 15th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse VI, Tuesday March 13th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse V, Tuesday March 12th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse IV, Tuesday March 11th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse III, Tuesday March 10th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse II, Tuesday March 09th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse I, Tuesday March 08 th 2009

SEE ALSO: COLOGNE HISTORICAL ARCHIVE - POSSIBILITIES TO HELP

GERMAN: http://archiv.twoday.net/topics/Kommunalarchive

Good News: Cooperation between Cologne Digital Archive (CDA) and City of Cologne (CDA, March 18th 2009 via Archivalia)

"Over the last days, we [CDA] received many enquiries concerning legal issues and the Digital Historical Archive. Even in the press and relevant news groups and mailing lists, this topic has been discussed.
Against this background, the initiators, prometheus e.V. (Cologne) in cooperation with the Department for History (Bonn), and the Cologne Historical Archive will clarify the legal situation in a cooperation contract. This will create a legal basis for the uploaders, the initiators and the CHA.
After a particular interlocution, all persons in charge agreed that this project will be continued under the supervision of the CHA and will be transformed into a 'citizen’s archive' (Buergerarchiv)."

Former Summaries
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse VIII, Tuesday March 17th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse VII, Tuesday March 15th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse VI, Tuesday March 13th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse V, Tuesday March 12th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse IV, Tuesday March 11th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse III, Tuesday March 10th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse II, Tuesday March 09th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse I, Tuesday March 08 th 2009

SEE ALSO: COLOGNE HISTORICAL ARCHIVE - POSSIBILITIES TO HELP

GERMAN: http://archiv.twoday.net/topics/Kommunalarchive

The National Security Archive (George Washington University, Washington D.C.) provides "online access to critical declassified records on issues including U.S. national security, foreign policy, diplomatic and military history, intelligence policy, and more. Updated frequently, the Electronic Briefing Books represent just a small sample of the documents in our published and unpublished collections." See a list of Electronic Briefing books relating to Israel below:

Many older books have not been seen for years, including a 1555 edition of 12th-century Jewish scholar Moses Ben Maimon's [acronym: Rambam] Letter on Astrology.

[...]

'There are a number of reasons why collection items may not be at their correct shelf location: they may have been misplaced on the shelves, the shelf mark label may have become detached from the spine and the item is being checked and reshelved, or the catalogue record may not have been altered to reflect a changed shelf mark,' Ms Perkins [Library's head of records]said."

For further missing treasures, see also British Library mislays 9,000 books, March 17th 2009 (The Guardian)

Peter Brantley (Executive Director for the Digital Library Federation) on The orphan monopoly:

"There are a large number of ways that books might fall into orphan status. A quick consultation of Peter Hirtle’s copyright table at Cornell Univ. allows us to see how easy this is. The impact of foreign rights is fiendishly complicated, and even the rules for U.S. publications are baroque; for older works it is a crafty rightsholder indeed who can figure out whether they might retain a claim. As Peter Hirtle observed to me in an email, 'The lengthening copyright terms and the gradual removal of formalities (especially the automatic renewal of works published since 1963) means that works that would have passed into the public domain in the past because the rights owners weren't concerned are still protected. The chances that the rights holders are either unidentifiable or not locatable also goes up.'
[...]
There are rough estimates of around 7 million digitized volumes in GBS [Google Book Search;] (see also: Salon JS Google Book Search - Volltexte (Zionistica) [German]) subtracting 750,000 newly identified works gives us 6.25 million. Let’s take a guess that there are maybe 1.5 million public domain works (this is not entirely out of the blue, but informed by earlier orphan works studies and reports), leaving 4.75 million titles. That’s a lot of books – about 2/3 of the total. It might be more, it might be less; it is a big number.
[...]
A large number of these orphans are going to be truly public domain books, just like pre-1923 works. However, we may never know that they actually have public domain status due to historically incomplete record keeping, and the lack of a national rights tracking and notification infrastructure." (via Archivalia@Twitter)

Recommended:
Article "Public domain" on Wikipedia

Articles in Archivalia ref. to "Public domain" (German)

WIKIMEDIA COMMONS a database of 4,120,985 [March, 18th 2009] freely usable media files TO WHICH ANYONE CAN CONTRIBUTE!

Cologne Historical Archive's head getting criticism concering copyright statement (Koeln.de March 16th 2009 via Archivalia)
Director of the Cologne Historical Archive is now getting criticism concerning the copyright statement.
Since March 7th, the initiative “Digital Historical Archive Cologne” offers the opportunity to upload copies of the material from the collapsed archive. This way, scientist can help to restore the documents.
Bettina Schmidt-Czaia (director of the CHA), she of all people criticized this ambitious project pointing out copyright issues and ensures indignations.
„Many scientists, that received ordered copies of our material in former times, are now putting them online to provied an access“, said Schmidt-Czaia to Cologne Courier. This might break „copyright-laws“ of the documents. „It would be better, if these copies would be handed to us“, she urged the scientists.
On the internet, this announcement created hard criticism. In the forum „Archivalia“ (among others), is pointed out that there do not exist copyrights for documents whose authors died over 70 years ago. Most of the documents are free to common (common free) and can be handed to others/third.

“Reconsider donation cooperativeness“

The fact that the head of the archive holds on to bureaucratical issues like copyright in this crisis caused a lot of unpleasure. Especially, when one relies on the help of active citizens to rescue the documents. At this moment, it is important not to exclude the scientists but to use their interest to reproduce as many documents as possible, as well as to receive financial support. In the forum as in the service Twitter already appeared a call to reconsider donation cooperativeness towards the archive.
User unfriendly charges in the former CHA are also criticized, taking a digital picture of a document with own camera cost 2 Euros each. The users of the archive state that these fees could be the reason why so less digitized copies were made over the last years.

Comment by Klaus Graf (Archivalia): Let us hope the CHA recognizes that Digital Historical Archive is a support and that a great offer to become a „Bürgerarchiv“ (citizen archive) is given. Hopefully the responsible body (Unterhaltsträger), the City of Cologne will understand that the standing on these fees to collect some little money is absurd in this situation, relying on civic support.
Cultural possessions are common properties, they belong to all of us. We must rap our politicians on the knuckles, when their administration trends towards removing this policy.
A more detailed position of mine towards this issue can be read in the article “Cultural possessions must be free to access” (Kulturgut muß frei sein) in the “Kunstchronik”: http://archiv.twoday.net/stories/5254099/


News on the Cologne Historical Archive by Sebastian Post@Twitter from the 61. Westfaelische Archivtag (March 17th-18th 2009 in Detmold) via Archivalia

1. Archival material & finding aids
Many backup films were recovered.
The Cologne Historical Archive (CHA) queries the German government refering to the archival material backups which are stored in the Barbarastollen. The Barbarastollen is the so called "Memory of German culture". Here, 825 Mio images on microfilms are kept save.
The finding aids of the CHA are completely rescued.

2. Statement on access to digitized documents from the CHA
The CHA do not dislike! the access to uploaded digitized material from the Cologne archives collections via internet, but the CHA has to agree upon every initiative. (see also:

3. Needs and hopes
Manpower and support will be needed for a long time. For sure is: The memory of the city is not lost. We are working on the rescue!


Pictures from the Erstversorgungszentrum (EVZ), showing the divisiveness of rubble and archival material (press service city of Cologne March 16th 2009 via Archivalia)

"Yad Vashem has received an archival collection from Luxembourg, detailing the Holocaust’s affect on that country’s Jewish population.
The microfilms were presented Monday evening in Jerusalem by Center for Documentation on World War II director Prof. Paul Dostert, of Luxembourg, to Yad Vashem chair Avner Shalev.
The collection includes some 31,000 pages, covering daily life under German occupation, confiscations, restrictions, lists and orders of deportations to ghettos and concentration camps, as well as information on looted Jewish property, emigration to the US, declaration of Jewish assets, life in the Funfrunnen home for seniors, and information on some 60 mixed-marriage couples who managed to rescue their Jewish spouses." (via Tracing the Tribe)

"Researchers interested in historical resources from the 19th and early 20th centuries are invited to a workshop in Oxford on April 16, 2009. The free half-day event will offer project presentations and demonstrations as well as practical sessions where participants can explore the new resources.
The workshop is organised by the Intute/JISC Digitisation Dissemination Project and will be relevant to anyone wishing to learn more about digital resources and the benefits these offer. There is no registration fee but places are limited and offered on a first come basis. For more information and registration, please visit the Intute: Arts and Humanities website:
A similar workshop will be held on July 2." (via Intute Newsletter)

On the ocasion of controversy about copyright questions and archival material uploaded to Cologne Digital Archive Website (see Summary Cologne Archive's collapse VII), Klaus Graf published a comprehensive article on Archivalia on the question:

"Ist die Reproduktion einer veröffentlichten Reproduktion urheberrechtlich nicht geschützten Archivguts durch einen Dritten ohne Zustimmung des Archivs [in Deutschland] zulässig?"

The information given by Graf might be interesting for anybody, who researches in German Archives using e.g. a digicam.

He summarizes:

"Für die in Benutzungsordnungen enthaltenen Genehmigungsvorbehalte bei der Reproduktion von Archivgut gibt es keine hinreichende gesetzliche Ermächtigung. Über die Bestandserhaltung und den Schutz der Rechte Dritter (Datenschutz, Persönlichkeitsrechte usw.) hinaus sind der Archivgesetzgebung einschließlich der Amtlichen Begründungen keinerlei Anhaltspunkte dafür zu entnehmen, dass der Gesetzgeber die Veröffentlichung von Archivgut reglementieren wollte. Da die Vorgaben des Bundesverfassungsgerichts zu Genehmigungsvorbehalten nicht beachtet werden, sind die entsprechenden Normen nichtig."

For the whole article on Archivalia, please follow th LINK (German).

CENTROPA bills itself as "[t]he first oral history project that combines old family pictures with the stories that go with them, Centropa has interviewed more than 1,350 elderly Jews living in Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, and the Sephardic communities of Greece, Turkey and the Balkans. With a database of 25,000 digitized images, [they] are bringing Jewish history to life in ways never done before. (comprehensive information on the project can also be found in Speelbound Blog - Preserving Jewish Memory: Family Photos Join Oral History in Centropa Movies)
Centropa also includes a film database called THE LIBRARY OF RESCUED MEMORIES - "[a]n ever-expanding library of short biographical films, each based on our interviews and family pictures". At the moment twenty stories can be viewed online.

Check out a further seven ONLINE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTIONS on Salon Jewish Studies!

In the framework of the project The Online Jewish Missions Project which was launched by the Lausanne Consultation on Jewish Evangelism (LCJE), 90 printed matters on Christian missionary activity among Jewish people in North America and the UK in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The news clippings (most of them appeared in the New York Times), books and pamphlets date to the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century.

UPDATE Duration of the rescue process, the new building for the Cologne Historical Archive and COPYRIGHTS (KSTa March 15th 2009 via Archivalia)
Georg Quander (Kulturdezernent [Department for Culture])makes an appraisal of the situation that the construction of a new Cologne Historical Archive will take at least five years. First of all, there has to be a location for constructing a building. “When the building is finished there must be constant heating for two years to dry the wall that the material will not get clammy or wet.” He amounts five years for this procedure. […]
The director of the Cologne Historical Archive, Bettina Schmidt-Czaia, points out that the rescue of material is still dangerous because the rubble could slide at any time. The rescue process will take at least another six months. The tentative wooden roof covering the rubble is a good shelter though. Wall on the side to shelter from sloping rain will be build soon. [...] Schmidt-Czaia addresses another problem that arises now: „Many scientists, that received copies of our material over the last years, are uploading it now on the internet to give access to the resources after the collapse” she explains. That breaks copyright-positions. “It would be better, if these people would give us the copies” addresses the director the scientists. (epd)
The statement of Bettina Schmidt-Czaia has already led to a controversy on Archivalia.

News on the Cologne Historical Archive's rescue process
Archivists and conservators start drying, cleaning and boxing the archival material from the rubble at the newly established Erstversorgungszentrum (EVZ) In Cologne. The aim is to identify and dry wet archival material as fast as possible to preclud must. Documents which are strongly affected will be dispatched to the Centre for freeze-drying at the Archivamt LWL (Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe) in Munster. (Archiv-in-Truemmern via Archivalia)
Elmar Ries on March 12th 2009 in Westfaelische Nachrichten: “It seems derogatory to the valuable documents, how they arrived in Muenster. There are stored in two metal boxes in the trailer of a car. The valuable books and very old documents are freezing cold and quickly wrapped into Cellophane. Archivists would have torn their hair under ordinary circumstances. The first delivery amounts 8.5 l.t. During the last days, the whole material have been frozen in the Humana-Milk-Union (Hamana-Milchunion) in Everswinkel – 'minus 30 degrees Celsius, so that the documents, wet from rain and groundwater do not smite from mildews' Dr. Marcus Stumpf the head of the Archivamt says." (via Archivalia)

After covering the archive's rubble with blankets, now the work on the canopy is almost finished. (Archiv-in-Truemmern via Archivalia)

A series of pictures on the conditions of archival material reaching the EVZ (Archiv-in-Truemmern)

Notes on the rescue process from the new blog Archiv-in-Truemmern.de (AiT), which was launched on 10th of March 2009
Students of the Academy of Art Bern (Department for conservation and restauration), supervised by Sebastian Dobrusskin, support the rescue team at the scene. (AiT March 12th 2009 via Archivalia)
On March 12th 2009, the following material was recovered: 1) medieval handwritings 2) council records 3) files of the Adenauer inventory (902) 4) deeply damaged material from the personal papers collection of the architect Schneider-Wessling. (AiT March March 12th 2009 via Archivalia)

Figures from the Digital Cologne Historical Archive
Up to now, 378 documents had been uploaded by 222 Users.

Individual experiences during the rescue process at the scene (http://twitter.com/SunshineFan via Archivalia)
S. found many modern (20^th century) material: typed, construction plans in good condition but partly wet and crinkled and sometimes just snippets. S. did not find any deeds or similar things but many books of private (bequest-)collections, partly tattered and squashed. Many mikrofiches, diapositives and negatives had been found – mostly destroyed, some got cleaned. 3-D-objects such as medals, badges, gifts to the City of Cologne and others (parts of bequests) had also been found.

Consequences of the Cologne Archive's collapse for research centers, an example (Kuvi - Kultur & Visionen March 13th 2009 via Archivalia)
“The collapse of the Cologne Historical Archive (CHA) also has consequences for the students at Bochumer Ruhr- University. Many students are not able to complete their work because of the loss. Especially, the historians researching and working on Middle Ages are affected very hard. For example, there is a young researcher who has been working for a book on the topic of patrician families in Cologne for the last four years. He is that all the material for his work is submerged. His research is apruptly abandoned. The director of the concerned department at Bochum Ruhr- University wants to help his students and prevent hardship provisions. Until now, he can only wait to see how many documents can be found and restored in the end out of the rubble."

Selected news on the collapse (in English)
Authorities Uncover Second Victim of Cologne Archive Collapse (DW-World.de March 12th 2009)
While announcing the discovery of a second corpse on Thursday, March 12, a Cologne fire department spokesperson could not confirm whether the body found was that of a 24-year-old who reportedly lived in a building near the archive and has been missing since the archive suddenly collapsed on March 3.
The remains, which were found nine meters (29.5 feet) beneath ground level, had not yet been removed from the rubble and it was impossible to tell [on] Thursday evening if they were from a man or woman, the spokesman added."
Cologne collapse: no compensation grouting used for archive (Jessica Rowson, Technical reporter for New Civil Engineer on March 12th 2009)
"Cologne’s City archive building had not been underpinned or compensation grouted despite its proximity to the underground works being carried out for the Cologne North-South light railway, a Cologne transit authority Kölner Verkehrs-Betriebe (KVB) spokesman revealed today." (Further reports by Jessica Rowson availabe on NCE)

Former Summaries
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse IV, Tuesday March 12th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse IV, Tuesday March 11th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse III, Tuesday March 10th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse II, Tuesday March 09th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse I, Tuesday March 08 th 2009

SEE ALSO: COLOGNE HISTORICAL ARCHIVE - POSSIBILITIES TO HELP

GERMAN: http://archiv.twoday.net/topics/Kommunalarchive

"The Charles Booth Online Archive is a searchable resource giving access to archive material from the Booth collections of the Archives Division of the Library of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and the Senate House Library.The Booth collection at LSE Archives contains the original records from Booth's survey into life and labour in London, dating from 1886 [?] to 1903."
In the framework of this project the philanthropist's notebooks related to the Jewish community of London are available online (among others). Four notebooks originated from 1884 until 1987 can be viewed in PDF.

(picture above: Charles Booth in the Encycopedia Britannica)

UPDATE 1 Notes on the rescue process from a circular by the Society of German Archivists (VDA) (via Archivalia)
The rescue work continues and the tentative roof to shelter the material at the scene is being improved. Documents are permanently discovered, some of them are deeply damaged. Storage room, suitable for the material was found in a Cologne district. The storage room‘s climatic conditions comply with the requirements, so the archival material is now pretreated and sorted there. The clean and dry materials will be brought to other archive storages soon, which kindly offered this possibility. First, the closest archives will be used and later on the others in a wider area. The type of storage possibilities also is important according to the decision where to bring the material.
Since last Sunday, Archiv-AK (Archive task force) advises intensely professional the City Cologne on rescuing and processing the archival material. The Archiv-AK consists of the following persons:

Historisches Archiv Koeln [Historical Archive Cologne]
Dr. Bettina Schmidt-Czaia
Dr. Ulrich Fischer
Nadine Thiel
Claudia Tiggemann-Klein

Kulturdezernat Stadt Koeln [Cultural Department of the City of Cologne]
Michael Lohaus

ARGE Stadtarchive NRW [Worgroup City Archives North Rhine-Westphalia]
Dr. Jens Metzdorf

Land Nordrhein-Westfalen [Federal State of North-Rhine Westphalia]
Dr. Johannes Kistenich

Landschaftsverband Rheinland [Society of Landscape Rhineland]
Dr. Arie Nabrings

Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe [Society of Landscape Westphalia-Lippe]
Dr. Marcus Stumpf

Rheinisch-Westfaelisches Wirtschaftsarchiv [Economy Archives of Rhein-Westfalia]/ VdA- Verband deutscher Archivarinnen und Archivare [Society of German Archivists]:
Dr. Ulrich S. Soénius

Fachhochschule Köln [University for Applied Sciences Cologne]
Prof. Dr. Robert Fuchs
Bert Jacek

Continually, news items are published on saved or destroyed inventories or certain documents. Appreciating the public interests, but these items are leading astray. Unfortunately, it has been stated several times, that the “memory of Cologne“ is totally destroyed, as well as the archive will be closed for several years. Both statements are absurd.

UPDATE 2 Ulrich Soénius, director of the Rheinisch-Westfälische Wirtschaftsarchiv [economy archives of Rhine-Westphalia] in an interview with WDR.de on March 11th 2009. (via Archivalia)
There are 300 archivists from Germany and from bordering countries, e.g. Switzerland, who offer support . In addition ca. 60 conservators asked to help. All of them asked to provide assitance during the next weeks. [...] The restauration of the documents costs a lot of money. We talk about a figure in the hundreds of millions Euro, but a precise amount can only be figured out after rescue work is finished. The restauration of an ordinary file may cost between 15,000 and 20,000 Euro.

UPDATE 3 Parchment deeds transfered to the Historische Erzbistumsarchiv Koeln [Archbishopric Historical Archive of the city of Cologne]
Today the Historische Erzbistumsarchiv Koeln took over the rescued parchment deeds of the CHA. The number cannot be specified precisly, but Dr. Ulrich Helbach, head of the Archvishophric Archive, estimates the number at 30,000. (Archivalia March 12th 2009 17:37)

UPDATE 4 Action force probably found the second missed Khalil G. (KSTa March 12th 2009 19:05 via Archivalia)

Rescue-process of the archival inventory
Unfortunately, there is no official statement on the Cologne archival material from the special meeting of the Cologne city council which was held yesterday. Hence, following information is based on http://twitter.com/DieMedienprofis & http://twitter.com/SamZidat (via Archivalia). 40% of the CHA inventory was rescued undamaged from the rearward building. 20% of the CHA inventory was rescued from the rubble. (?) Up to now, 27,000 m³ rubble were dumped in Porz (a district of Cologne).
Ratsprotokolle [council protocols] as well as a cupboard loaded with wax signets from the 14th and 15th century were recovered.
A huge number of documents had been on the fourth floor. These ones dissapeared in the rubble when the archive collapsed.

Meeting of the Kulturauschuss NRW [Landtag cultural commitee of the state of North-Rhine Westphalia] in the afternoon of March 11th 2009; Chair: Dr. Fritz Behrens (Minister of the interior NRW)
The Kulturstaatssekretär (permanent secretary for Culture) Hans-Heinrich Grosse-Brockhoff briefed the representatives about current action and nationwide support. Also the Landtag administration supports the Cologne Historical Archive (CHA).

1. The department for information services assists the recovery and the restoration of the archival material.
2. The Landtag administration offered to house a CHA staff member's on-the-job training.
3. The department for information services will call for donations and install an information desk on the event Nacht der Museen (night of the museums) in Dusseldorf on May 9th 2009. Visitors will get informed about the dimensions of the Cologne catastrophe and about aspects of the protection of cultural possessions. (press release Landtag NRW via Archivalia)
   

Selected news on the collapse (in English)
Spiegel Online asked Were Subway Builders Cautious Enough? on March 9th 2009: "Workers at Bilfinger Berger, the German company leading construction of this part of the underground line, have said internally that planners may have forgotten to take account of the particular impact that the weight of the books and the water were having on this problematic soil.It's also possible that city administrators failed to take a recent report on structural damage at the city archive as seriously as it should have."

Hildegard Stausberg asked in the article Assault on Cologne's historical core (Welt Online - English News) on March 6th 2009: "Could it be that the collapse of the Cologne city archives building will mark a change in this mentality [which archives generally associated with something dried out and perhaps a little dullof] in Germany?" (via Archivalia)

Pictures from the Rescue Work at the scene
Salvaging Cologne's Destroyed Historical Archive a picture series by Spiegel Online

Former Summaries
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse IV, Tuesday March 11th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse III, Tuesday March 10th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse II, Tuesday March 09th 2009
Summary Cologne Archive's collapse I, Tuesday March 08 th 2009

SEE ALSO: COLOGNE HISTORICAL ARCHIVE - POSSIBILITIES TO HELP

GERMAN: http://archiv.twoday.net/topics/Kommunalarchive