Zachary M Baker
Assistant University Librarian for Collection Development - Humanities and Social Sciences
Reinhard Family Curator of Judaica and Hebraica Collections
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.
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Topic Guides
Education
- MA, Library Science, University of Minnesota
- MA, History, Brandeis University
- AB, History, University of Chicago
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 me
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).