Mapping the NYU Libraries Cookbooks Collection is a metadata visualization project showing 27,187 cookbooks mapped by place of publication. This project focuses on place of publication because it offers new information to food studies researchers. Place of publication metadata is not searchable in the NYU library catalog. For example, researchers wanting to find books on Iranian cooking would be able to find many books with this subject heading in the catalog, but they would not be able to narrow down the search to books published in Iran. Place of publication metadata can be the best way to find cookbooks on a national or regional cuisine published by a publisher in that region.
Visualizing library catalog records in aggregate offers a valuable new way to understand the depth and breadth of a collection. The world map shows the wide international reach of the NYU Libraries Cookbooks collection with books published in 146 countries. The United States map shows the regional strength of the American collection, including all 50 states.