INTRODUCTION
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The Indices
It may be interesting to browse through the Catalogue to get a
feeling of its scope. To locate specific names or titles, however,
use of the Indices as summarized in the Finding Guide (p.xlvii)
is strongly recommended. Access to names and titles has been provided
by the Author, Illustrator, Title, Periodical, and Series
Indices. The names of editors, translators and affiliated
corporate bodies are included in the Author Index. It should be
noted that only "distinctive" titles are included in the Title
Index; titles that contain non- distinctive titles like Lider
(Poems), or Oysgeveylte shriftn (Selected Works) are not
listed.
There is no separate subject index, as such, in this Catalogue;
access to subjects has been provided by the headings listed in
the Table of Contents, which generally reflect the subject analysis
offered by the LC classification scheme. If an author or illustrator
is the subject of a book, his or her name will generally be found
in the Author or Illustrator Index.
Despite the care that has gone into compiling the Indices, they
are, unfortunately, not exhaustive. Because of practical limitations
and cataloguing rules, they may not include all the authors and
illustrators found in general works or in collections, or all
the individual titles listed in the complete works of a prolific
author. It was also unfeasible to index the many book review clippings
Fishstein inserted into his books. The reviews remain in situ,
however, and, when present, are mentioned in the note section
of an entry.
Attention should be drawn to the presence of two features not
usually found in library catalogues of this nature. One is the
Illustrator Index, and the other is the Table of Name
Equivalents.
The Illustrator Index constitutes a primary source for
researchers in both Jewish and general history of illustration
in the first part of the twentieth century. Many of the volumes
are enhanced by beautiful graphic design, and illustrations by
over 400 artists, some of whom were also to make a name for themselves
outside the Jewish world. The names of most of these artists can
be traced with the help of the Illustrator Index. A footnote to
this Index refers the reader to a supplementary list of entries
which contain or discuss work of illustrators whose names could
not be included in a catalogue entry because of space limitations.
Several authors were also illustrators, like Moshe Leib Halpern
[#1360]. Many artists shared a similar background with Yiddish
poets, as Benjamin and Barbara Harshav have pointed out in American
Yiddish Poetry, and their art often formed striking parallels
to the poetry of their colleagues (1986, p.62).
Table of Name Equivalents. This Table provides a list of
names in the original Hebrew characters in which Yiddish is actually
written, and links those names to their Roman (Latin) alphabet
equivalents used in the Author and Illustrator Indices. The indexed
Roman alphabet names are generally "authoritative" LC name headings,
which have been chosen according to a complex set of hierarchical
rules. Since the name headings generally derive from English language
reference sources, and seldom reflect the systematic romanization
of the original Yiddish, the Table of Name Equivalents should
make the use of the Indices a less frustrating task for Yiddish
readers.
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Goldie Sigal
Jewish Studies Librarian
McGill University Libraries
