Final Phase
could not be found," Wasserman said.
"Basically, we started from scratch,
using the Weine Judaic System."
Detroiter Mae Weine, who created the
nationally recognized system, died last
year.
Wasserman piggybacked on a
Jewish Federation of Metropolitan
Detroit project to place computers in
every area Jewish school. Six comput-
ers funded by Federation were placed
in B'nai Moshe's new schoolroom that
doubled as a library and daily chapel.
Wasserman recruited volunteers to
begin computer cataloguing the col-
lection and adhere to international
standards.
Funding, Promoting
The B'nai Moshe library has received
some monies from the congregation,
but \Vasserman has had to do a lot of
fund-raising. She held a "virtual show-
er" — "Don't come, just send money"
— for two years, has received a $1,000
annual gift from the sisterhood, and
started a Friends of the B'nai Moshe
Library group with 20 to 30 members.
Last year, the opening of the Cantor
Louis Klein Chapel and multipur-
pose room created a new era for the
library. Rows of chairs for the daily
minyan no longer block the shelves.
Inviting displays and signs promote
new acquisitions and magazines, and
several stuffed chairs form a relaxing
reading area. The collection now has
4,000 titles.
Last November, spurred by B'nai
Moshe past president Pearlena Bodzin,
the Friends turned the congregation's
library fund into an endowment fund
and named it for Wasserman. Next
month, the congregation will hold its
second annual Library Shabbat, corn-
plete with professional storyteller, and
will fund-raise for capital improve-
ments.
Last month, Wasserman and the
Friends began circulating books dur-
ing Shabbat Kiddush on a "Shabbat-
friendly" book cart. Each member
— both adults and children — has
a bar-coded library card on the cart,
as does each book. The two cards
are placed together in a separate box
when a book is taken home.
Computerized
Sagebrush, the company that makes
the library computer software, is com-
ing out with a new, Web-based version
and will no longer support the old. It
has offered discounts to current users.
Wasserman knew there would be
a lot of bugs in a new program, but
also knew that the InfoCentre software
would be the way to go. She asked,
Rabbi Judah Isaacs at Federation's
Alliance for Jewish Education for
financial assistance and worked with
Sagebrush on getting a deeper group
discount.
B'nai Moshe, Temple Israel, the
Jewish Community Center, Hillel Day
School, Temple Beth El, Beth Shalom
and the AJE now are converting to
InfoCentre. "The economic climate is
so bad," said Wasserman, "we couldn't
get additional libraries to buy the soft-
ware. But all the current ones upgrad-
ed." What will cost new users $5,000
after July 1 cost current local users
only $300, with Federation's help.
Federation also has given
Wasserman access to its technical
support staff, and she's chairing the
local users group for the new software.
The Future .
Wasserman envisions a "virtual com-
munity library," possibly by next fall.
With local holdings listed on the
Internet after the local libraries fully
convert to InfoCentre, she would like
to see a local consortium of Jewish
libraries. "It would increase the hold-
ings for the entire Jewish community."
She says a network would par-
tially offset the loss of the Midrasha
Library, closed in the 1990s when the
old United Hebrew Schools-Agency
for Jewish Education closed its doors
in Southfield. Federation made the
decision last year, she said, to give
away the Midrasha's 40,000 books and
30,000 magazines.
She said Jewish libraries and a
Jewish library system "gives access to
Jewish information not always avail-
able in the public library sphere."
"I'm not trying to compete with the
public libraries," she said. "We don't
have the dollars or the space. So if
you're looking for that recent Jewish
bestseller, it probably won't be here.
"But, if I find it for a dollar on a
used-book sale ..."
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