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Zachary M Baker

Assistant University Librarian for Collection Development - Humanities and Social Sciences
Reinhard Family Curator of Judaica and Hebraica Collections
Zachary Baker, in the outdoor passageway between Green Library and the School of Education.

Contact

  • (650) 725-1054
Room: 
102B

Zachary's role in the library

As AUL for Collection Development, I have overall responsibility for managing the collecting program and collection budgets for Humanities, International and Area Studies, Social Sciences, and Special Collections.

And as Judaica/Hebraica Curator, my primary focus is on antiquarian and Special Collections materials in the field(s) of Jewish Studies. In that role I work closely with our Assistant Curator, Anna Levia, and with Stanford's Taube Center for Jewish Studies.

Professional activities

American Library Association (member since 1976)

Association of Jewish Libraries (member since 1976; past president, 1994-1996)

Association for Jewish Studies (member since 1982; on Board of Directors since 2008)

Selected publications

“Memorial Books as Sources for Family History,” and “Bibliography of Eastern European Memorial Books:  Updated and Revised,” Toledot, vol. 3, nos. 2-3 (Fall 1979-Winter 1980), entire issue.

“Bibliography of Eastern European Memorial Books,” and “Geographical Index and Gazetteer,” in From a Ruined Garden, translated and edited by Jack Kugelmass and Jonathan Boyarin (New York:  Schocken Books, 1983), pp. 223-275.  Second, expanded edition (Bloomington:  Indiana University Press; in association with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC, 1998), pp. 273-353.

Co-editor (with Bella Hass Weinberg), Yiddish Catalog and Authority File of the YIVO Library (Boston:  G. K. Hall, 1990).  5 vols.  Includes introduction, “The Yiddish Collections of the YIVO Library:  Their History, Scope, and Significance,” by Zachary M. Baker (reprinted in YIVO Annual, vol. 22 [Evanston:  Northwestern University Press; New York:  YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 1995], pp. 253-273).

“Montreal of Yesterday:  A Snapshot of Jewish Life in Montreal During the Era of Mass Immigration,” in An Everyday Miracle:  Yiddish Culture in Montreal, edited by Ira Robinson, Pierre Anctil, and Mervin Butovsky (Montreal:  Vehicule Press, 1990), pp. 39-52.

“Preserving Judaica Research Resources,” Association for Jewish Studies Newsletter, 2nd series, no. 4 (40) (Spring 1990), pp. 7-9.  Revised version in "History of the Jewish Collections at the Vernadsky Library in Kiev," Shofar, vol. 10, no. 4 (Summer 1992) pp. 31-48.

“The Case of the Soviet Sholem Aleichem:  A Bibliographic Detective Story,” The Book Peddler, no. 17 (Summer 1992), pp. [24]-31.  Revised and expanded version:  "Sholem Aleichem's 80th Birthday Observances and the Cultural Mobilization of Soviet Jewry:  A Case Study," YIVO Annual, vol. 23 (Evanston:  Northwestern University Press; New York:  YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, 1996).

“Art Patronage and Philistinism in Argentina:  Maurycy Minkowski in Buenos Aires, 1930,” Shofar, vol. 19, no. 3 (2001), pp. 107-119.

“Isadora Duncan Among the Hebrews,” Imprint (Associates of the Stanford University Libraries); Spring & Summer 2001), pp. 19-31.

Editor, Judaica in the Slavic Realm, Slavica in the Judaic Realm: Repositories, Collections, Projects, Publications.  New York: The Haworth Information Press, 2003.  Issued simultaneously as Slavic & East European Information Resources, vol. 4, no. 2/3 (2003).  Plus article in volume:  “Resources on the Genealogy of Eastern European Jews,” pp. 169-184.

Ira Nowinski: The Photographer As Witness.  Text by Zachary M. Baker; introductory essays by John Felstiner and Anita Friedman.  Stanford:  Stanford University Libraries, 2004.   64 p.  Exhibition catalogue.

“Yiddish Publishing after 1945,” in Yiddish after the Holocaust, edited by Joseph Sherman (Oxford:  Boulevard Books; The Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies, 2004), pp. 60-73.

The Lawrence Marwick Collection of Copyrighted Yiddish Plays: An Annotated Bibliography.  Washington, DC:  Library of Congress, 2004.  Accessible via the Library of Congress website: http://www.loc.gov/rr/amed/marwick/marwickbibliography.pdf.

Editor, Judaica Librarianship, vols. 12-16/17 (2005-2012).

“The Samson/Copenhagen Judaica Collection and the Diaspora of Hebrew Books,” Imprint (Associates of the Stanford University Libraries), Summer 2007, pp. 17-28.

“The Painter as Ethnographer: Maurycy Minkowski and the European Yiddish Intelligentsia before World War I,” in Czernowitz at 100: The First Yiddish Language Conference in Historical Perspective (Lanham, MD:  Lexington Books, 2010), pp. 125-135.

Translation:  Hirsh Glik, Songs and Poems.  Translated from Yiddish by Jack Hirschman and Zachary Baker.  Berkeley:  CC. Marimbo, 2010.

“The Painter as Ethnographer: Maurycy Minkowski and the European Yiddish Intelligentsia before World War I,” in Czernowitz at 100: The First Yiddish Language Conference in Historical Perspective (Lanham, MD:  Lexington Books, 2010), pp. 125-135.

 “A Bibliographer Encounters the Muses:  Reflections on the Yiddish Theater and Its Legacy,” in Perspectives on the Hebraic Book:  The Myron M. Weinstein Memorial Lectures at the Library of Congress, edited by Peggy K. Pearlstein (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 2012), pp. 177-193.

“'Gvald Yidn, Buena Gente': Jevel Katz, Yiddish Bard of the Río de la Plata,” in Inventing the Modern Yiddish Stage: Essays in Drama, Performance, and Show Business, edited by Joel Berkowitz and Barbara Henry (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2012), pp. 202-222.

 

More about Zachary

Before coming to Stanford I served for eleven years as Head Librarian of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, in New York City (1987-1999).

Education

MA, Library Science, University of Minnesota
MA, History, Brandeis University
AB, History, University of Chicago