Food, Drink and The Private Library (Part II)

As noted in previous posts, Food & Drink has seen tens of thousands of volumes published in dozens of languages over the centuries.  Even given an entire lifetime and substantial finances, attempting to collect every title ever published is unrealistic:

    
German cookbook, 1718                                            French treatise on coffee, 1705

But if we take a matryoshka approach (as noted in previous posts), building up an overall collection of food & drink books by focusing on mini collections within this subject area, we are less likely to be frustrated, over the long haul, at our attempts to complete our private library.  The smaller each mini collection is (in terms of the total number of titles required to achieve some sense of completion), the happier the collector in each of us likely will be.

The snag with a subject area as broad as Food & Drink is that the first few levels of mini collections below the main level have seen enough titles published to be stand-alone collections in their own right.  Consider the following examples:

• Food & Drink > Agriculture > Farming
• Food & Drink > Cooking > Cookbooks
• Food & Drink > Drink > Coffee

Although in each of the above instances we are focused on mini collections that are two levels down from our main collection, each mini collection can stand alone as a collection in its own right due to the number of titles published on that subject.  The solution is to start at a level even lower than those above (or, to stay with our matryoshka analogy, focus on an even smaller doll).  For example:

• Food & Drink > Agriculture > Farming > Organic Farming > Organic Orchards
• Food & Drink > Cooking > Cookbooks > Regional Cookbooks > German Cookbooks
• Food & Drink > Drink > Coffee > Coffee Cultivation > Cultivation of Arabica Beans

As we descend each level (focus on a smaller nested doll), the total number of titles published at each level is less than those published for the level above, making it easier to achieve some sense of completion for our private library:

    

Tomorrow, we will examine more closely how this concept might be put to use for one of Food & Drink's most popular mini collections (which, again, could easily be a stand-alone collection in its own right), cookbooks....