1. Preserving Our Treasures: Digitization Projects
YIVO Library
Digitization Projects

2. The History of YIVO Founded in Vilna in 1925
Mission to serve as the first academic center for East European Jewry
Established unique Library and Archives as a result of systematic acquisition policy and efforts of volunteer zamlers (collectors)

3. The YIVO Library Over 385,000 volumes
13,000 titles of periodical editions
Historical YIVO Vilna and Mattityahu Strashun Collections
The most comprehensive collection of publications in Yiddish language
Rare Books Collection
Bund Collection
Yizkor Books Collection
Art Books Collection
Milwitzky Collection of Ladino Books

4. YIVO Library Digitization Projects
Yiddish Children’s Books Project in cooperation with International Children’s Digital Library and the Center for Jewish History, available at :
Online digital copies are linked to the YIVO catalog records.

5. Sample view of the YIVO children’s book on www.childrenslibrary.org

6. Sample view of the YIVO children’s books on the Center for Jewish History’s website

7. YIVO academic publications
Entire sets of YIVO major scholarly journals, such as Yidishe shprakh and YIVO Bleter were digitized with the help of Society for Hebrew Books (Chaim Rosenberg, Director) and posted on:
www. Yivolibrarybooks.org
Total of the YIVO editions published by YIVO in Vilna in New York and by other YIVO branches around the world amounts to over 500 titles. All YIVO publications (before 1965) were microfilmed. Our goal is a complete digitization of existing microfilms with YIVO publications, as well as of all YIVO editions published after 1965.

8. Yidishe shprakh, v. 1, no. 1 , New York, January-February 1941

9. YIVO Library Rabbinical books from the Strashun Collection
The Strashun Library is a major historical collection of Rabbinical literature that previously belonged to Mattityahu Strashun ), intellectual, book collector and philanthropist based in Vilna
Currently includes over 17,000 volumes
Rabbinical books have been digitized in cooperation with (free of cost), total over 8,000 titles.

10. The Strashun Library book on www.YIVOLibrarybooks.org Sample

11. South American Yiddish Periodicals
Supported by the Claims Conference grant
Collection of over 350 unique titles in Yiddish, Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Russian
This project is currently in progress.
Stage 1, digitization of microfilms (total: over 200 microfilm reels.) Microfilms are currently being digitized by the Society for Hebrew Books in New York, the YIVO major partner on digitization projects.
However, only 50 percents of this collection exists in microfilm form, the rest will require both microfilming and digitization.

12. Future projects Strategy
Our goal is to contribute to digitization of all publications in Yiddish language (books and periodicals)
Extending and further development of YIVOLibraryBooks website and separate general YIVO Library website
We are open to collaborative projects