October is National Cookbook Month. That means a lot to me as my mother collects cookbooks. Those who have been following along for my building know that I’ve given my mother an aisle of shelves in my building. So far she’s moved 1163 cookbooks into the building. She still has a bunch of them to go. It has always been a dream of hers so we’ve looked at many different systems for organizing cookbooks over the years, every thing from Dewey to Standard Bookstore to checking with various archives with cookbook collections. She finally decided to just divide it up into sections based on what she owns and is interested in the collection. Since we’re still discovering what she has and as she uses it, she might find some other things more useful organized a different way, but I thought you’d be interested in what categories she’s come up with so far.
- Children’s Cookbooks
- Etiquette Books
- Fannie Farmer
- Historic Cookbooks, including old originals, reproductions, and reference books like The Food Chronology
- Encyclopedias and reference books about modern topics like The Science of Good Cooking
- How Tos/Informational – like Pickles and Preserves or The Recipe Writer’s Handbook
- TV Shows, Brands, and Chefs
- Community, Church, or Fundraising Cookbooks
- Cookbooks from Iowa
- Microwave Cooking
- Special Diet
Stay tuned for more. I’ll keep you up to date.
Sarah S. Uthoff is main force behind Trundlebed Tales fighting to bring the History, Mystery, Magic and Imagination of Laura Ingalls Wilder and other greats of children’s literature and history to life for a new generation.Attend one of her programs, schedule one yourself, watch her videos, listen to her podcast, and find her on Facebook, Twitter, Google+,LinkedIn, and Academia.edu. She is currently acting President of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Association. Professionally she is a reference librarian at Kirkwood Community College and director of the Oxford (Iowa) Public Library.
Sarah's Notebook 