[Harpua]

I have a whole bookshelf of cookbooks in the dining area (it's an apt.). The top shelf is the small cookbooks, usually the old ones sponsored by knudsen, reynolds, or pillsbury.

Shelf underneath, my cooking magazines, and also the old magazines from the great grandma's day (woman's day, etc. I REALLY enjoy those).

Shelf underneath is the old novelty cookbooks that I treasure and pull out on a gloomy day to cheer me up. I also read (or look at) those ones while I'm doing my business.

Shelf underneath, I got the instructional books, On Cooking, some reference, and my vegetarian/vegan books.

Shelf underneath, I have my baking, desserts, and chocolate books, followed by my Italian, then Japanese cookbooks.

Wow I don't have any mexican or chinese cookbooks... or thai. Hmmm....

Good Japanese books are hard to come by, but I found an amazing country cooking one at the discarded books pile at the library. It's where I became interested in Japanese food.

Oh, I also have 2 boxes full of recipe clippings from my mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. I would run out with these during a fire. It also has my oldest cookbook in it, a Gold Medal Flour book from 1910. It's nice to have a cookbook that was made BEFORE the convenience food takeover. It actually had quite a few french recipes in it.. well, french technique anyway.

[oldschool1982]

I used to store them in my office on a shelf. Only taking them to the kitchem for R&D. This was an attepmt to preserve the condition. Now they sit on a shelf in our patio room. They don't get used near as much as they once were but it's nice to be able to display the ones I've purchased/collected or been given with the Recipe manuals I've put together for each of the restaurants/kitchens I set up.

[KCZ]

I've decided the best place to put bookcases is in a hallway. In newer homes, hallways are 42-48" wide, which leaves plenty of walking room if 10-12" deep bookcases are used to line one side, preferably floor to ceiling. I've got 400-500 cookbooks, and I now have room for all of them as well as file boxes for recipe cards, and they're handy to the kitchen.

[Maywen]

My collection has had a recent serious cull as we are moving, however my vintage books are in a bookcase in the office.
The 500 or so other cookbooks are boxed and indexed in the garage.
I use 'Collectorz' software to catalogue my books. Its a great help when searhing for something I dont have as it searches Amazon, LOC and Powells amongst other libraries world wide, making it a great reference as well.
My copies of Donna Hay, Gourmet Traveller and Delicious Magazines are also catalogued and stored in the house as I am constantly referring to them.
I just got a copy of Maggie Beer's 'Maggies Harvest for christmas (Australian). 2 inches thick with a padded cloth embroidered cover. Soooo beautiful. This one wont go on a shelf. The sort of book you sit in bed and read while you are eating chocolates!
When I move I will probably open up a little shop and sell cookbooks and ephemera, new and old.
I plan to also have a small kitchen installed so that we can test recipes on a friday and share the joy of cooking.
I do also have a book holder in the kitchen sagging with lots of books and recipes that I am always trying to get around to cooking.

[canadiangirl]

We are remodeling our kitchen and my sister in law asked were I would display my books. Most are too worn, used & held together by big bands...The others by Julia and one by The Frugal Gourmet can but I only have a few!
But I joined a cook book club & got 4 books for $3! My FAV was "The Professional Chef-The Culinary Institute of America!($1!!!)
I have been so bored in the kitchen lately and will be ordering many more cookbooks! They will be taking the place of my other novels-since I really don't have time for a real novel!!!!
I am soo amazed at the numbers of volumes some of you have! I am SO jealous! Please don't give them up but... if you must... I would love ANY hand me downs because I love to try new and tasty treats w/ my family!xo

[adamm]

me well i just keep mine were ever i have room, right now there in rubermaid containers becsue im in the process of moving back home/moving to a new apartment closer to home now that im done with my externship.

My boss had a really neat set up in his home kitchen, he had a ledge or shelf going the whole way around his kitchen and put his cookbooks on it. he didnt have too many but the ones he had he put face out and then had wine or olive oil bottels inbetween them.

[Mannlicher]

Since I posted my first reply to this thread back in 2006, I have moved from Miami to North Florida.
My cookbooks still reside on the stacked book shelves, but now they are in my den, next to my computer desk.
I belive I have added about 20 more books, and I have managed to computerize 4 binders full of my own recipes. For Christmas, I gave my kids each a thumb drive with some 40 years of my creating recipes.

[Dg0113]

i a have a tall pile on my floor, i dont have much room for a bookshelf in my room

[inthekitchen]

Though I do have a shelf for my books (cooking and otherwise), the cookbooks don't really have a style of organization yet since my collection is small. Only in the past year have I really found my love for cooking so the collection hasn't gotten too out of hand just yet. My favorite though is a recipe collection from the local farmer's market (the North Market) in Columbus, OH. It's got a nice selection of recipes from the merchants that sell their goods in the North Market.

[Maywen]

Only just found your love of collecting cookbooks? You might want to get a bigger shelf. It really is addictive! You will soon run out of room.
I am thinking of erecting a small clothesline in my kitchen and suspending some of the less valuable books from this.

Maywen....Cookbookaholic

[jennabrown]

Originally Posted by mudbug

This question was inspired by Kimmie's post at the "form over function" thread.

We all have a collection of cookbooks which probably doesn't get smaller. How do you sort them? Where do you keep them (kitchen counter, cabinets, closets, stand alone shelves, shelves on the wall)? Do you have a cookbook on "display" in a plate holder? Do you have blank recipe books you write your creations in or keep them on your computer? Do you use them all or do you trade unused ones at the used book store?

As my collection of recipes grew I thought of storing them in the computer.
And I also save the recipes found in the net.
I am a good cook, but I don't usually try recipes on my own.

[tessa]

drrooooooollllls at the thought

At Bruces house I have some books in a shelf next to my side of the bed, at my place i have cookbooks on shelves, on the coffee table, on the computer table, on the computer, in the kitchen drawe on the bookshelf in the lounge, bookshelf in the bedroom, on the floor next to the bed, on the bed when im sleeping solo in baskets ......... pretty much everwhere. and right now im putting in to boxes as we are doing what shroom did , but in a different way , we are moving in together, but none of my books will begetting lost in transit.
Bruces sister is wonderful and often picks up books for me from garagesales. Ohh and i forgot my cake decorating books are startring to inhabit any space thats left over , plus the number of books in my car as well.

Cookbooks are one of the very best things people can give me for gifts

Originally Posted by shroomgirl

I just moved from a 4 bedroom 3 bath to a Bungalow with 1 BR 1 bath.....office moved at the same time...DOWNSIZING. Books and mags went flying.

I have an antique Armoire with glass doors and carved wood flowers on the sides that lives in the livingroom with only cookbooks....divided into baking, Julia and James, Time-Life (from my childhood, vegetarian, game/shrooms same same in my book, cajun/creole, ethnic and I do have that algerian as well as lithuanian etc book, that's pretty much how it's divided oh yeah the chocolate shelf overrunnth.
cookbooks being read in my BR, cookbooks used often on the one counter in the kitchen !! 1950's orginal kitchen...except fridge. READ NO COUNTER>
I'm not meticulous about my books, if you pick up one I've used you'll know it...it will possibly not have a binder, it will OPEN to recipes that are fav automatically, it will definately have dried samples of much used ones.....these are Joy of Cooking, Maida Heaters, Le Notre pastry, I'm sure a few odds and ends.....and I have my Mom's Settlement and Good Housekeeping from the 50's as well as prying Pillsbury "Best of the Bake-off collection" circa 1966 from her library.
I dated a guy for years that had the largest cookbook library in Mo. cookbooks were mine to borrow or recieve for the asking....the way to my heart is definately fueled by books.(wine/food doesn't hurt either....but information got me.)

Originally Posted by mudbug

Shroomgirl,

Ugh, downsizing, that's got to be the toughest thing to do for a collector. The Friends of the Library are having their spring sale so my collection just grew by another non-existent shelf... LOL!

[Maywen]

OK all of you cookbook hoarders,
I thought I should let you know there IS a cookbook collectors group on yahoo. Just have a look in the yahoo directory for CookbooksEtCetera
I cant post the URL as Chef Talk wont let me yet.
Great group, organised regional events, as it says, etc!
I am in Auatralia and I still get heaps out of being a member of this group.
Highly Recommended

Maywen

[amazingrace]

There is a bookcase, in the living/dining area, where I keep the most frequently used cookbooks. The ones I don't use too often are in the loft atop a side by side set of file cabinets. I have some books which I need to find a new home for, since they have not been used in years.

[ChrisLehrer]

I'm an academic, so I'm very crazed about books and their organization. I never, ever cut up magazines, either.

First of all, you people looking for space, go figure out where the local college profs buy their bookshelves. The ones you're looking for are just barely the height of your books, and just barely their depth, and no more. You can get twice as much on shelves like these, and they're usually very cheap (and also unfinished: just put a lick of paint or shellac or whatever on them).

Second, I like alphabets. I do things by region/nation (China, Japan, Louisiana, Spain, etc., just to oversimplify). Then within this, I do authors: Lin before Tropp before Yan, etc. Then in one space you put the special subject books (cakes, chocolate, etc.), and in another you put the weirdly oversized things that don't fit elsewhere, and so on, again by author. Magazines go in their own places, by magazine title and run.

What happens if you organize this way, i.e. by author or some other arbitrary system rather than content as such, is that you are forced to remember what everything is. Pretty quickly, you WILL remember, you'd be surprised. And every once in a while you will stumble on books you forgot you had, and then can browse with a lot of pleasure, as though you'd just bought the book. What's more you know where to put that new beauty you just bought.

All in all, I think many of you are missing the point of a hyper-organized system sans computers (which crash, don't load, get coated with raw chicken, etc.). It's for browsing: you know where it is, just up above the blue one, oh no, hang on, maybe it's just to the left of this red one, and hey, what is this red one anyway? Huh, gotta dig into that.... That's the point: not instant retrieval, which is just mechanics or having a secretary, but constant meandering, which is about having ideas.