The Price Library of Judaica was formally dedicated in March, 1981, to support the teaching and research missions of the Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Florida. The library is named for Isser and Rae Price, whose sons, Jack and Samuel Price of Jacksonville, Florida, established a fund in support of the library.
The Price Library's core collection is the Rabbi Leonard C. Mishkin Library from Chicago, Illinois. At the time it was purchased in 1977, it was the largest private library of Judaica and Hebraica in the United States. The Mishkin collection was supplemented by two major acquisitions -- the Shlomo Marenof Library in 1978 and, in 1979, the inventory of Bernard Morgenstern's bookstore in the Lower East Side of New York City. The Theodor H. Gaster Library, with a concentration in Ancient Near East and Dead Sea Scroll studies, subsequently enriched the collection in the mid-1980s.
Library materials, cataloged under the Library of Congress classification system and subject headings, are generally available through interlibrary loan. Users may access Price Library materials' bibliographic records, including romanized records for thousands of Hebrew and Yiddish titles, on FloridaCat, the State Universities System's on-line catalog. WorldCat, from OCLC (Online Computer Library Center) is also available to the University of Florida Community, which provides access to major research collections at a national level . The University of Florida is a strong participant in Interlibrary Loan, and the Price Library provides materials to researchers throughout the entire United States. OCLC's ILLiad software allows UF users the convenience of initiating requests from their own computers.
Although some early editions in Hebrew from the 16th to 19th centuries are held, the overwhelming strength of the Price Library is in the literature of Jewish studies from 1880 to the present time. The Price Library is comprised of significant holdings in social, political and community history, Hebrew and Yiddish linguistics, literature, and translations into English, Palestinography, and modern Israel, Zionism, Hebrew Scriptures, Judaism and rabbinics, reference tools, and more than 450 serials and newsletters currently received on subscription. Along with inactive older titles, the majority of these serials are not held in other libraries in Florida or neighboring states.
Jewish contributions to world civilization and culture -- medicine, science, the arts, literature, philosophy, etc., are conspicuous throughout the collection, as are an extraordinary number of uncommon pamphlets and ephemera. Due to their fugitive nature, these "here today, gone tomorrow" pamphlets and research reports are considered to be among the greatest of the Price Library's treasures. Histories of Jewish communities and synagogues can be found interspersed throughout the collection. Virtually every Jewish population, from Alaska to Argentina and from Scandinavia to Hong Kong, is represented on the Price Library's shelves. In addition to an extensive Holocaust collection, a special effort is made to preserve the memorial books of extinguished East European Jewish communities; over 450 of these increasingly scarce and greatly sought after volumes are currently held.
The collection facilitates study and research in a great number of disciplines and areas of interest in the humanities and social sciences. Biblical archaeology, comparative religion and law, cultural pluralism and assimilation, Middle Eastern politics and literary stereotypes are a few representative areas. Though a comparatively young library, the Price Library of Judaica possesses an enviable, comprehensive collection of significant magnitude and potential, making it a regional center of library excellence alongside well respected and mature Judaica collections on other American campuses. With few exceptions, the Price Library holds most of the important scholarly landmark literature and classic texts in Jewish studies. It is a library without peer in the southeastern United States.
Price Library of Judaica
