Brown University has launced a Yiddish Sheet Music Collection as part of its Center for Digital Initiatives. So far, it’s a work in progress… they’ve digitized and catalogued about 200 pieces from holdings of around 2000 pieces of Yiddish sheet music. The project is impressive for ease of use, featuring both browsing and searching capabilities. The librarian who has catalogued this is Rosemary Cullen of the John Hay Library, featured in an article in the
Forward on March 24 . The music is available for you to enjoy (non-commercially) online, and there are lots of rewarding images of the stars of yesteryear from the Yiddish stage . Go to the Center for Digital Initiatives, at http://dl.lib.brown.edu. Toward the bottom of the screen in the bottom navigation bar, click on “Collections”. You will see many interesting digital collections. Toward the bottom of the page is the icon for the Yiddish Sheet music. Click on the picture and it will take you to the “home” screen of the Yiddish sheet music collection. At this time, the “search” and the “browse” are active. In the search area you will have “basic” and “advanced”. where you can search. Congratulations to Rosemary and thanks to Brown for launching this!