Category

The joys (and power) of cataloging

I am knee deep in the Western Americana archival collections of the Magnes–physically processing them and cataloging them for access at the Bancroft. I  find myself reflecting frequently on the power of the cataloger, that creature who selects and categorizes and classifies and shapes our access to so many things. Oh, I know. All things [...]

Old Jewish Neighborhood in SF

http://blogs.forward.com/the-arty-semite/132382/ I am re-posting an article from The Jewish Daily FORWARD on the exhibition organized by the Magnes and Lehrhaus Judaica, currently of view at the Jewish Community Library in San Francisco.  (Alla Efimova) Slideshow: Jews of the Fillmore By Renee Ghert-Zand Courtesy of The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life With the opening [...]

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-10-03

Watch our collection records in @OCLC grow each day under the loving attentions of @larchivist http://bit.ly/b3s4SL # To Cherish the Fruit of a Beautiful Tree: Etrog Containers in the Magnes Collection | opensource blog http://wp.me/psXps-hm # Staging an exhibition and planning the online catalog using @memoryminer http://yfrog.com/jl1vgfj # Staging an upcoming exhibition and preparing its [...]

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-09-26

Trying to figure out the moves on chess board in Oppenheim's 1856 painting Lavater and Lessing Visit Moses Mendelssohn http://bit.ly/9k0Fn6 # Did White put the Red in check mate? http://bit.ly/9k0Fn6 # Is White Mendelssohn (who's wearing red), or is Lavater (who's wearing black)? http://bit.ly/9k0Fn6 # New on magnes.org: The Esther Scroll (megilat ester) Collection http://fb.me/GzHwGskH [...]

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-09-19

RT @ninaksimon: Looking for creative approaches to merging museum & library where library is free, museum costs $1 (nonnegotiable) Thoughts? # New post at opensource, "Findings from the Museum Collection Storage" by Julie Franklin http://fb.me/wmirUcke # New on YouTube. In the Magnes Archives: Arriving to San Francisco (1848-1900) http://fb.me/zP58OkzJ # I uploaded a YouTube video [...]

The Good Things To Come: Findings from the Museum Collection Storage

Greetings from my new home at the Bancroft and Happy Holidays! These days and months, preparing for the visible storage of the Magnes Collection in its future home in downtown Berkeley, I am busy researching art and artifacts in the art storage facility where the collection will be kept until its move. Quite prophetically, a [...]

Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-09-05

RT @spagnoloacht: At UC Berkeley & interested in Israel/Palestine? TWO events at the same time! http://bit.ly/df6WdF http://bit.ly/dA9Pc2 # Greet the Jewish New Year in style with The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life http://fb.me/GbLwLF1r # I posted 2 photos on Facebook in the album "St. Helena Sanitarium" http://fb.me/HsK74WGU # Updates on the design of [...]

New home, new opportunities: A report from the Magnes archivist

As the archivist for The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at the Bancroft Library, I am currently stationed out at a new, state-of-the-art storage facility on Regatta Blvd in Richmond, California.  The Western Jewish History Center archival collections, housed for forty three years in the attic of the Magnes Museum building on Russell [...]

Taking part in the Magnes transition

Posed on behalf of Valerija Nechay, Kohn Intern at the Magnes in the Summer of 2010. Valerija is currently a student at UC Santa Cruz, majoring in Sociology. My brief time at the Magnes over the past eight weeks allowed me to take a glimpse into the rebirth of the most significant collection of Western [...]

Origin of the Rites and Worship of the Hebrews

At the center of a large architectural edifice, a man contemplates “the terrestrial globe bursting forth from the midst of clouds and receiving luminous emanations from the Most High.” Around this image is a fantastically elaborate array of niches containing narrative scenes, friezes and frames enclosing blocks of text, rows of figures, Kabbalistic symbols and programs, Zodiac signs, and divine names. Beneath, in Hebrew and English, is the title “Origin of the Rites and Worship of the Hebrews”. The work was reproduced and published for the American public in 1859 together with an “Explication”, a one hundred twelve page explanatory booklet translated from the original French, 3 by Max Wolff, rabbi of Ohabei Shalom Congregation in Boston, who later served as a cantor in San Francisco.