Thank you, Rita Hilu

After receiving many positive comments and remarks by Starrett City students and faculty on the Annual Customer Satisfaction Survey in December, Ms. Rita Hilu, our wonderful library staff at Starrett City, responds in her own words with gratitude and encouragement:

In Memoriam of Professor Richard Green

With the passing of Richard Green, Touro College has lost a dedicated professor.  His students have lost a compassionate teacher and friend. The library has lost a loyal supporter.

We love hearing from YOU!

The results are in! Here’s what students and faculty have to say about the Touro College Libraries:

We value your feedback and use it to shape the services we provide and our direction for the future. If you have any additional feedback or suggestions, please leave them in the comments.

Contributed by: Sara Tabaei, Information Literacy Services Director, Midtown

To Lend or Not To Lend Books?

Reading is a virtue, but tradition is divided on the relative merits of borrowing, lending, and purchasing books.

In Judaism, it is often considered a great virtue to lend Jewish books. Some sages of the Talmud interpreted the verse “Happy are they that do righteousness” (Psalms 106:3) as referring to those who write books and lend them. Rabbi Yehuda ha-Hasid of Regensburg in the 13th century taught that the reward for those who lend books to their students in the world to come which will be as great as if they themselves had studied from those texts since they were the vehicles who enabled knowledge to be learned by the borrowers.

Tech Trend: 3D Printing

Photo credit: Jean-Etienne Minh-Duy Poirrier https://flic.kr/p/kvjYDJ

3D printing is taking the technology world by storm.  This new trend has been gathering attention with some of the outrageous items that can be printed, from cookies (or pancakes as shown above) to cars!  But do you know the story behind this new technology?

Tu Bi’Shevat: Happy Birthday, Trees!

An olive tree, “Olea europaea subsp europaea” (CC image via Wikimedia)

On February 4^th of this year, Jews all over the world will eat fruit. Usually it is dried fruit, such as dried apples or pineapple, sometimes even dates, figs, or dried pear. Many purchase carob, known as bokser in Yiddish. My personal favorite was always the bright orange dried papaya. We didn’t really eat it otherwise and it tasted the best out of all the options in the little “pekeleh” (package) that we would get in school.  I never really liked the carob; it was always so dry and chewy, kind of like fruit jerky. But there we were, in the middle of winter, eating dried fruit to celebrate the birthday of the trees, as it says in the folk song we learned: “Tu B’Shevat Higiah, Chag La’Ilanot” (The fifteenth day of the month of Shevat has come, birthday (or holiday) of the trees).