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by Diana Shonrock |
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Iowa Cookbook Collection: What is it? |
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The Iowa Cookbook
Collection consists of cookbooks generated in Iowa that have been
collected by the Iowa State University Library as representative of the
nature of the genre. As of 2002, this collection consists of
approximately 2,000 items including family recipe books, church and
other organizational cookbooks, recipe pamphlets and cookbooks centered
around Iowa companies, Iowa restaurant cookbooks and cookbooks from
other institutions such as radio stations.
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These books can be found
in collections in 2 locations:
* Special Collections Department (manuscript collections and
non-circulating Special Collections and Archives book collections)
* ISU Library’s Circulating Collection (available in the General
Collection and in the Library’s Cage).
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Iowa
Cookbook Collection: Where did it come from? |
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During
the early 1990s, the ISU library accepted a large gift (over 12,000
pieces) from Robert F. Smith of What Cheer, Iowa and among the dirt and
disorder discovered a treasure. As a plan was developed and decisions
were made about what to save from this enormous gift and other small,
but similar donations that arrived at about the same time, the focus
became those materials unique to Iowa.
Among the initial 12,000 |
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items in the Smith gift were nearly one
thousand cookbooks written and distributed by various Iowa
organizations, companies and families from around the state; some dating
back to the turn of the century. In
addition, the collection included recipe booklets from Iowa companies
such as Quaker Oats, Maytag and Amana.
Initial gifts such as these have broadened during the past
several years to direct the focus of the collection to the need to
preserve Iowa community cookbooks.
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Iowa
Cookbook Collection: Why is it important?
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These
cookbooks speak volumes about Iowa's culture, history and society as it
has developed/evolved over more than a century; however, these items
have not been actively preserved and their history is threatened. These
cookbooks represent much about whom we are as Iowans and how we have
evolved to this point. They
provide a mirror to the societal and cultural roots from which they
emanate and provide a peek at some aspects of the value systems of their
authors and organizations. Also to be treasured are those |
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cookbooks that our
grandmothers and great-grandmothers annotated with their comments and
changes in their own hand. These
materials have a great deal to teach us and are indicative of the
changing life styles of Iowans over more than a century of eating and
socializing. At this
juncture the important issue remains the identification of existing
items and the provision for some means of access to them for
researchers. In addition,
there is the need to create an awareness of the need to preserve these
items as unique to our Iowa heritage.
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What
is the future of the Iowa Cookbook Collection? |
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As
new Iowa cookbooks continue to arrive at Iowa State those published
after 1972 will be cataloged and added to the circulating collection
with an identification note in their catalog records indicating that
they are part of the Iowa Cookbook Collection.
Older incoming cookbooks (pre-1972) are cataloged for Special
Collections and held securely in the
temperature-and-humidity-controlled space along
with the ephemera file of cooking-related pamphlets and booklets from
Iowa companies.
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The
policy for collecting future items for this collection include:
* Add new
cookbooks gradually as they are published (particularly those with
historical context)
* Acquire older items that meet the collection criteria as they
become available,
* Begin to make
accessible by cataloging more of the items already held in these gift
and manuscript collections
Additionally,
we will also supplement
the collection with relevant books that document the history of American
cookery to provide the necessary resources for background research and
emphasize the impact cookbooks have on everyday life in America.
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Looking beyond ISU: Where are other Iowa cookbooks?
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What
is the availability of older community cookbooks in Iowa? Are libraries and historical organizations keeping and
maintaining older editions of these family, corporate and organizational
cookbooks or are they seen as disposable?
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Space limitations and other issues make it impractical for the
ISU Library to retain more than the most representative items in-house.
What is now most important is to determine what Iowa cookbooks
still exist, to identify their locations, and to assure that these
materials are not lost to us or to the Iowans of the future.
During the spring of 2001, I began a project to identify and
locate what community cookbooks remain extant.
As of the Spring of 2003, the survey of the 576 public libraries
in the State of Iowa to determine their cookbook holdings has nearly
been completed. Over 400 libraries submitted data indicating their
holdings and the type of historical information available in their books
along with the recipes. A survey of over 200 small historical museums in
the State of Iowa is currently underway with one-half of these museums
responding so far. This
data is being entered into a database and will be available by the end
of summer 2003.
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