National Yiddish Book Center Inc

CREATING AND ENHANCING ACCESS TO THE YIDDISH BOOK CENTER?S WEXLER ORAL HISTORY PROJECT [THE YIDDISH BOOK CENTER?S WEXLER ORAL HISTORY PROJECT SEEKS FUNDING TO ENHANCE ACCESS TO ITS DIGITAL COLLECTION OF VIDEO ORAL HISTORIES ABOUT YIDDISH LANGUAGE AND CULTURE IN THE NON-ULTRA-ORTHODOX JEWISH COMMUNITY. WITH THIS GRANT, WE WILL CREATE TIME-CODED TRANSCRIPTS AND BILINGUAL INDICES FOR A LARGE PORTION OF OUR CONTINUOUSLY GROWING COLLECTION, THEREBY INCREASING MULTILINGUAL ACCESS TO THIS UNIQUE ARCHIVE. ADDITIONALLY, WE WILL ALIGN GEOGRAPHIC AND SUBJECT METADATA TO WIDELY USED FORMATS AND LINK THE ORAL HISTORY COLLECTION TO RELATED DIGITAL COLLECTIONS AT THE YIDDISH BOOK CENTER. FINALLY, WE WILL MAKE THE ARCHIVE DISCOVERABLE ON MAJOR SCHOLARLY SEARCH PLATFORMS AND ALLOW FOR INTEGRATION INTO UNIVERSAL DIGITAL LIBRARIES ALONGSIDE OTHER HUMANITIES RESOURCES. THESE EFFORTS ENABLE RESEARCHERS, EDUCATORS, ARTISTS, AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC TO MORE EASILY ACCESS AND UTILIZE THESE INVALUABLE PRIMARY SOURCE MATERIALS ABOUT THE CULTURE OF AN IMPORTANT ETHNIC MINORITY IN THE US AND BEYOND.]

YIDDISH BOOK CENTER WEXLER ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

OUTWITTING HISTORY! THE CAMPAIGN FOR THE NATIONAL YIDDISH BOOK CENTER

YIDDISH IN AMERICA: CULTURAL ENCOUNTERS

YIDDISH: A GLOBAL CULTURE

NAYE FARBINDUNGEN (NEW CONNECTIONS): ONLINE YIDDISH STUDY AND COMMUNITY DURING COVID [?THE PANDEMIC WAS VERY GOOD FOR YIDDISH,? ASSERTED THE SUBHEAD FOR AN OP-ED BY ANDREW SILOW-CARROLL ON JULY 20, 2022. WHY? HOW COULD THIS BE WHEN THE MAJORITY OF NATIVE YIDDISH SPEAKERS?THE MEMORY KEEPERS OF SECULAR YIDDISH CULTURE SILOW-CARROLL WAS REFERRING TO?ARE OVER 75, AND ELDERS DIED AT ACCELERATED RATES DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC? THIS PROJECT?LED BY THE YIDDISH BOOK CENTER?S ONGOING WEXLER ORAL HISTORY PROJECT WITH INPUT FROM RELEVANT COMMUNITY PARTNERS AND A BOARD OF EXPERT ADVISORS?WILL DOCUMENT ONE ASPECT OF THIS PHENOMENON OF CULTURAL RESILIENCE IN DIFFICULT TIMES: THE SURGE IN ONLINE YIDDISH-LANGUAGE STUDY AND COMMUNITY BUILDING DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC. WE WILL AIM TO ANSWER QUESTIONS SUCH AS ?WHAT PURPOSE DID ONLINE YIDDISH-SPEAKING SPACES PLAY IN A PERIOD OF WIDESPREAD SOCIAL ISOLATION AND COLLECTIVE ANXIETY?? AND ?WHAT ARE THE IMPACTS OF THIS PHENOMENON ON THE DIASPORIC YIDDISH LANGUAGE COMMUNITY?? [EDITED BY STAFF]]

OCR CORRECTION BY IMPROVING ROBUSTNESS TO ORTHOGRAPHIC VARIATION IN YIDDISH, A LOW RESOURCE LANGUAGE. [THIS PROPOSAL WILL SUPPORT THE DEVELOPMENT OF AN EXPERIMENTAL SYSTEM TO IMPROVE ERROR CORRECTION ON THE EXISTING YIDDISH BOOK CENTER OPTICAL CHARACTER RECOGNITION (OCR) PROJECTS, WHICH ARE THE FIRST AND LARGEST INSTANCES OF OCR FOR YIDDISH DONE AT SCALE. THE EXPERIMENTAL SYSTEMS WILL CORRECT A 650 MILLION WORD CORPUS (ABOUT 12,000 SCANNED YIDDISH BOOKS) OF YIDDISH TEXT PRODUCED BY OPTICAL CHARACTER RECOGNITION (OCR) WHICH IS AVAILABLE NOW AT THE YIDDISH BOOK CENTER?S FULL-TEXT SEARCH WEBSITE (HTTP://OCR.YIDDISHBOOKCENTER.ORG). THIS CORPUS WILL DOUBLE IN SIZE BY 2025 UPON THE COMPLETION OF A SEPARATE OCR PROJECT, THE UNIVERSAL YIDDISH LIBRARY. THE UNIVERSAL YIDDISH LIBRARY PROJECT WILL ADD AT LEAST 10,000 ADDITIONAL BOOKS FROM MULTIPLE INSTITUTIONS TO THE EXISTING CORPUS, AND THE OCR CORRECTION METHODS USED FOR THIS PROJECT WILL BE APPLIED TO THE UNIVERSAL YIDDISH LIBRARY CORPUS IN THE FUTURE.]

NATIONAL AWARD FOR LIBRARY SERVICE