From the year 1850 the introduction of inexpensive pulp based papers brought about a further revolution in Hebrew publishing. Printing and owning books were no longer the prerogative of the wealthy, now the middle class could also afford to acquire Sifrei Kodesh. Publishing societies printed hundreds of unpublished works from manuscripts, new editions of early imprints, journals and newspapers blossomed, new collections of contemporary Responsa and commentaries appeared in every Jewish community......The blessing of cheap paper brought a curse in disguise. The acids used to break down wood chips into pulp continue to acidify the paper matrix causing it after several decades it to turn brown, brittle and crack. Many important works from the last generation are no longer usable, they are simply disintegrating into piles of brown flakes. The following quote is from the Judaica Archival Project application to the brittle book initiative of the National Endowment For The Humanities. In correspondence and conversations we have had with the librarians of the major Judaica libraries in the world we have found unanimous agreement that brittle 19th century printed Rabbinic works are one of the most pressing issues on every Jewish Research library's preservation agenda. Dr. Pearl Berger the Dean of Libraries at Yeshiva University and former chairman of the Council of Archives and Research Libraries in Jewish Studies Y.U. wrote us on September 6, 1988: 'I am pleased to hear that you are considering a project aimed at the preservation microfilming of Judaica books. The problem of deteriorating books in our libraries is both serious and extensive. Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century imprints in large numbers, have already reached the brittle stage. The only practical means now available for preserving these works is microfilming.'.... (2)Mr. Brad Sabin Hill, head of the Hebrew Section of the Oriental Collections of the British Library, wrote us on July 27, 1990: '...I handle rare Hebraica with regularity and have never seen Hebrew books in more need of immediate filming than Eastern European imprints of the turn of the century. As you are interested in Rabbinics, you are aware of the vast body of material from Eastern Europe which awaits microfilming. Any project which addresses this need should be given unqualified support. ... ' (the emphasis is Mr. Hill's) (3)Dr. Jonathan Joel, the Deputy Director of JNUL wrote us in April 1993: 'The Jewish National and University Library has been working with the Judaica Archival Project, under the directorship of Mr. Yaakov Rosenes, since 1988. During all these years, Mr. Rosenes has shown a great deal of resourcefulness and devotion to the Judaica Archival Project's mission. His competence hardly needs to be described in words: it is manifested by the rich choice of Rabbinic literature on microfiche that the Project has been able to produce in a short period of time, and offer cheaply to scholars, with only scarce financial resources available.The Project may be regarded as a rather helpful step towards the common aim of preserving the Jewish printed heritage. A very large number of Judaica and Hebraica books, particularly those published since 1850, have been printed on low-quality paper, which is now so brittle that their very existence is at great risk unless they are not used at all anymore. The only rational way at the present to preserve the works which these books contain in a usable form is to capture their images on microforms. .......'We are asking you, as a concerned individual, to study our Adopt-A-Book program, and to consider joining in this unique initiative.
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