Among the members of the board of YIVO were none other than Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. YIVO operated as a research centre that employed researchers, secured research funding and produced publications. The activities of YIVO were divided into different sections that among others concerned themselves with Yiddish language philology, collection of Jewish demography and economic indicators, research and education. After a decade of work, the Institute had accumulated scores of thousands of books, around 10.000 volumes of Jewish newspapers in various languages, and there were approximately 220 thousand entries listed in the YIVO’s bibliographical register. An important role in YIVO activities was played by zamlers – the collectors – who gathered vanishing ethnographic materials and various data that characterized the Jewish community of Eastern Europe. They even collected money for the YIVO activities. In 1929 there were more than 150 groups of zamlers. YIVO chambers and as well as treasures of the Institute had been considerably damaged during the years of the Second World War. Regardless, YIVO recovered and now actively operates in New York, U.S.