Need A Recipe?

I was looking up a recipe for bread (not online, in an actual cookbook) and I started thinking about the cookbook section of the library.  This is a great row to get lost in on a Saturday afternoon; thick volumes, glossy pictures, detailed drawings and great expectations. But then I found something even better - a whole cookbook library!  
Actually, The Fales Library & Special Collections is on the third floor of NYU’s Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, located at 70 Washington Square South in New York City and houses several collections including the “Food and Cookery Collection”.  Their focus is on the “evolution of cuisine and food practices in 20th century America”.  The library started with Cecily Brownstone’s collection of 12,000 cookbooks and 5,000 pamphlets - Brownstone was the food editor of the Associated Press and sold her books to the library before her death in 1986.  Prior to the donation she kept her books in her three story home (a brownstone) on Jane Street in Greenwich Village - can you imagine 12,000 cookbooks?  Even if you didn’t read anything else, or have any furniture or pets or family members, I would think it would be a little claustrophobic.  During 39 years as the food editor, Brownstone wrote five recipe columns and two features that ran in papers across the country.  She was also close friends with James Beard, Irma Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker (authors of the Joy of Cooking).
A recent boost to the collection was the addition of Gourmet Magazine’s cookbook library of 3,500 books, purchased for $14,000 by chef and cookbook author Rozanne Gold.  Ruth Reichel was the editor of Gourmet Magazine when it closed in 2009 and knew The Fales Library would be a good home for the books.  BTW, have you read “Garlic and Sapphires” by Ruth Reichl?  My daughter and I listened to it on CD several years ago (inter-library loan) - she is a great storyteller and who wouldn’t want to walk in the shoes of the food critic at the New York Times?     
Marvin Taylor, who directs the Fales Library, is actively pursuing NYC chefs and restaurateurs for more papers and cookbooks for the collection.  The library is open to the public as long as they are doing serious food research - no browsing bread recipes allowed.