Dr. Dov Schidorsky, born in Germany, holds a B.A. degree in political science and education from the Hebrew University, a M.Sc. in library science from Simmons College, Boston and a Ph.D. in librarianship from the University of California, Berkely. From 1969 to 1993 he has been active in research and teaching at the School of Library, Archive and Information Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. During the years 1978-1989 he served as Director of the School.
His earlier professional experience included the following institutions: In the 1950s, the Israel Defense Forces Archive and the Israel State Archives. In the years 1953-1977 - Founding Librarian Tel Aviv University Library; 1956-1957 Visiting Librarian - Yale University Library, New Haven. In the years 1963-1971 he served as Consultant to the Library of Congress Procurement Mission in Israel. He was twice Research Fellow at the School of Library and Information Studies, University College London in 1988 and in 1990.
He held scholarships of the U.S. State Department(1956-7), the British Council(1964,1969.1971),the German D.A.D.(1979,1981,1984) and the Ebert Stiftung (1989).With the aid of those he has been able to research archives and libraries and also become thoroughly acquainted with library systems in those countries .
His main research is focused on libraries and book collections as cultural and social agents in the last two centuries in Palestine and Israel. He has published three books and numerous papers in the professional literature. Here are a few of the topics: The libraries of Jews, Moslems and Christians in Ottoman Palestine; the founding and development of a Jewish national library in Jerusalem against the backdrop of the emerging Zionist movement; nationalism and the idea of a Jewish national library; the origins of workers` libraries in Palestine and their role in the inculcation of the Yishuv with the ideology of the labor movement; the contribution of the Tel Aviv municipal libraries to the institutionalization of a cultural center in the city.
In the last decade his research focused on the fate of the Jewish book and the destruction of European Jewish culture during the Holocaust; the looting plunder, confiscation and destruction of Jewish private and public book collections and libraries in the Third Reich. Last but not least the large scale salvaging activities of the remnants after the Holocaust by the Hebrew University and the Jewish National and University Library have been researched. Juridical, moral and political issues of restitution policies were researched and discussed. The contribution of the emissaries in the salvaging of lost libraries and books in Europe, such as Gershom Scholem, Hugo Bergmann, Shlomo Shunami and Zeev Sheck have been discussed and their documents have been published. As a result of their efforts close to a million books have been salvaged and have been transferred to the Jewish National and University Library.