You don’t have to go far in Berkeley before you bump into a serious collection of books — on campus, at an independent bookstore or even on a table at a local coffee house. But until now, the People of the Book haven’t had a community library of their own in the East Bay.
That will change on Wednesday, June 16, when the Berkeley Richmond Jewish Community Center unveils its new Jewish library. At 1,500 volumes and growing, the library will be a handy East Bay resource, containing volumes ranging from the Mishnah to “Maus.”
“I’d like it to be a literary hangout,” said Sheila Becker, a BRJCC volunteer who has been coordinating eager bookworms helping with the project. While most of the area’s synagogues have libraries, “they’re restricted in use to their members, so there really was no [publicly available] Jewish library here,” said Becker, an El Cerrito psychologist.
“We intend it to be a lively library, which is not hard in Berkeley,” said Lee Marsh, a Berkeley resident and a founder of the BRJCC. Marsh and Becker anticipate that the space will eventually hold 3,000 books.
The library goes hand in hand with the BRJCC’s new learning center, which opened in August. The center offers classes on Jewish history, religion and folklore. “It seemed very appropriate to include a library,” said Marsh.
Five mornings a week, the room will be “a regular library, including a place to come in and lounge,” Marsh said. In the afternoons, children from the center’s afterschool program will use it for homework, tutoring sessions and special projects.
Meanwhile, evenings might find Bay Area Jewish authors reading and discussing their work, or the BRJCC’s book discussion group using the space for meetings.
In line with other state-of-the-art libraries, this one will offer multimedia facilities, Becker said. Audio and video tapes will be available, and two computers will feature CD-ROM and Internet hookups. Already, a Macintosh with Hebrew and Yiddish software has been donated.
It’s all a far cry from the BRJCC’s former library, which consisted of a small collection of Jewish books used by staff and board members. “We were pulling books off the shelf as we studied; they were just basic source books,” said Avital Plan, a Jewish education specialist who runs monthly courses for BRJCC staff.
To expand the collection, Plan worked with librarians at Berkeley’s Congregation Beth El and Lafayette’s Temple Isaiah. Both synagogues donated books; others came from BRJCC members, who heard about the library through word of mouth and newsletters.
Volunteer Ruth Hadlock, a retired Berkeley children’s librarian, then got busy organizing the books. “The quality of the donations has been remarkable,” she said.
Hadlock mentioned two outstanding gifts: a set of first-edition novels by the Victorian Jewish novelist Israel Zangwill, and a 1912 Bible from Berlin that contains written commentary in copperplate script. However, the library is not aiming to feature rare or valuable books, she said. “We just want to be a general, circulating library.”
In preparation for the library’s opening, Hadlock and Becker recently visited San Francisco’s Jewish Community Library at the Bureau of Jewish Education, mulling over its 30,000 volumes. There, they chatted with librarians and compared the merits of different cataloguing systems.
“It was very inspiring,” said Hadlock, adding that she would like to build up the Holocaust and children’s sections of the BRJCC collection.
“Jewish children’s literature used to be preachy and didactic, but now you see some marvelous things out there,” she said. “I was bowled over by what’s available in the San Francisco Jewish library.”
Right now, the BRJCC library might be a little acorn beside a mighty San Francisco oak. But, said Hadlock, it will grow.
“Every time I walk in to the center, there’s a small pile of books waiting for me.”
And though the library is currently being staffed by volunteers, Marsh reported that the center has applied for grants in order to pay for a half-time staff librarian and an acquisitions budget.
In time, Becker said she would like the library to deliver books to homebound individuals. She also envisages a library newsletter complete with book reviews and news.
Meanwhile, the BRJCC is continuing to accept donations from the community. “Apparently, the Jewish people have a lot of books in their homes,” said Marsh, laughing.
“We’re called the People of the Book. Now that I think about it, perhaps that should be the people of the books.”