How the Rebbe’s Library Responded to the Spread of the Internet

00:22 In the library we have about three hundred thousand sefer. Most of them are old and rare. Some of them are unicum that, that the only copy that we know of this sefer or of this print. The library's divided into two collections, the collection of the Friediker Rebbe that he collected over the years between and , between the years of nineteen twenty-five and nineteen fifty, that contains about one hundred thousand sefer. And the second collection is the collection of the Rebbe that was collected since the year nineteen fifty and on. That collection contains now about two hundred thousand sefer and there are new sefer and old sefer that are being donated to the library every day, and it continues to grow. Some of the sefer are old, about five hundred fifty years ago, since the beginning of the Hebrew Jewish print. And some was published in this present year and was donated to the library. It is not a open for the, for the public reading library. It's a research library that contains old and rare sefer that if someone wants to look up a sefer that he cannot find, he would come up to the li-- the reading room, ask the librarian to bring up this specific sefer from the storage rooms. He should be able to check what he needs or to get a copy of several pages if he needs. About fifteen years ago, people stopped coming so much to the library to look for a old sefer that they cannot find. Now,

02:59 it's not only in this library, it's in libraries in general around the world, people stopped coming so much to look up for old sefer that they cannot find. The reason is because in that period, the Internet became more popular. So many sefer was scanned and posted on the Internet. Till that when someone has to look up a sefer, he would rather go on the Internet and look in Google or somewhere and he wouldn't have to spend a day to go to the library, ask to bring out the sefer and to check it and then go back home. People are still coming to the library to look up sefer but not so much as before. We then decided that the proper way the library should serve, serve the public is by scanning the old and rare sefer and posting them on the site of the library. In the same period, there was formed the organization of Hebrew Books that they scanned sefer and posted on the site of Hebrew Books. So we came to a agreement, a joint venture of scanning the old and rare sefer that are in the library and they should be posted on the site of the Hebrew Books and on the site of our library. There was a whole staff working for two years. They scanned close to twenty thousand sefer, old and rare sefer that are in the collection of this library and posted by, on the site of the Hebrew Books and on the site of the library. When

05:21 someone wants to come to the site of the library and see these twenty thousand scanned sefer, old and rare sefer, he would have to go to chabadlibrary.org/catalog. There he would be able to see all three hundred thousand volumes. If he's looking for a specific sefer, he would find it. He would have a link to the card, catalog card with a description of this sefer and of this print. And if we have scanned the sefer, it will say in the bottom, it will give you a link to the scanned sefer and if, if you press on it, you would be able to see the whole scanned sefer. So for this about twenty thousand old and rare sefer that are in this library.