Amherst's National Yiddish Book Center is gearing up to celebrate the opening of its new secure, fireproof and climate-controlled "deposit library" in its nearly-completed Kaplen Family Building. Immediately thereafter begins what President Aaron Lansky calls "The Great Shlepenish," a project wherein the local nonprofit is employing six energetic workers and a supervisor for six weeks, with the hope of finishing by mid-July. The goal of the Shlepenish is the physical and informational transfer of thousands upon thousands of Jewish texts, periodicals, and other items such as sheet music from its current location at a factory space in Holyoke to the Center's newly constructed state-of-the-art library annex at the primary Hampshire College site, whose design was modeled after Harvard's long term book storage facility and features "an airlock entrance, gasketed doors, geothermal energy and precise computer-controlled temperature and humidity"—theoretically sufficient to preserve books for 300 years or more.
Grand migrations of heavy items, however, do not happen for free, and the NYBC is soliciting the community for donations to help finance the anticipated $74,000 cost of the move. Donations to the center are always tax-deductible, and any funds raised in excess of the $74K goal will be used to further innovative new bibliographic and educational programs.
Founded in 1980 and now supported by over 30,000 members, the center is the largest and fastest-growing Jewish cultural organization in America, having rescued or otherwise gathered and preserved some 1.5 million works of Yiddish and other modern Jewish literature. The Center also archives sound and video items, and in 1998 launched the Steven Spielberg Digital Yiddish Library in an effort to digitize the titles in its collection (many of which are physically deteriorated) and make high-quality reprints available on demand. Its 13-hour radio series, Jewish Short Stories from Eastern Europe and Beyond, was greeted enthusiastically by NPR listeners, and its ongoing preservation efforts have been called "the greatest cultural rescue effort in Jewish history." To contribute to that effort, call the Center at (413) 256-4900 or visit www.yiddishbookcenter.org.
