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I just read the: "Tips For Getting The Most" post, one thing always appaling to me when I see it, and yep I saw on this post, is when people lay books on their side and stack them on top of each other, a simple Google search on how to manage a book library will tell you that's a huge No No, it puts pressure on the binding and spine. The proper method is to always keep them vertical and next to each other, and not too tightly packed or that will create pressure in the other direction. And to not keep papers inside between pages as that can weaken the binding. Of course to keep an eye on the the humidity level of the room as well. Just thought I'd mention it because I never see this discussed here. 

Very much a counsel of perfection; I have a sneaking feelling most of us have too many cookbooks, so some end up on their sides - too tall for the shelf etc, and how many of us keep some of our collections in the kitchen - a terrible environment. But not all these books are so valuable that they need archival treatment, I think? Certainly my more valuable ones are kept in the house, standing up, away from contamination, but the rest have to take their chance in the kitchen or in the outide dry annexe!

Ray

Yep some are certainly more valuable that others, and they do need to be used and cooked out of. 

The state of my kitchen books generally indicate how much I used them! So paradoxically, the most damaged ones are of course the ones I use most, and the impeccable ones, are the ones I use least.

But I am pretty terrible at keeping them according to your advice anyway :)

However, I can share one good advice about magazines - I own a lot of them, both French and English and buy them regularly. I store them in an open cardboard box standing up, but this is not the tip.

The tip is that I order them by month of release, whatever the year, title or language. That way I can easily pick the ones according to the season, i.e now, if I am looking for recipes inspirations before going to the market for example, I would look into the September or October issues of Olive, Saveurs, Elle a Table and the like. It makes my life a lot easier.

I imagine the cookbooks in Diana Henry's kitchen move about quite a bit, so the strain is spread around.  But the OP's point is well taken, if you can avoid storing books that way.  Saw a picture a few weeks ago of Karl Lagerfeld's library, which horrified me: *all* the books, the vast majority of which are big-format, photo-heavy volumes, are/were stored horizontally, about six deep in each stack/section.  Yikes! The advantage is of course readability of titles, and no doubt KL had assistants to wrangle with the task of retrieval. 

A while ago I tried Agaillard's suggestion for sorting magazines seasonally (in response to a post by her or another member here), but find that I'd rather search for inspiration by reading over lists of recipes on EYB than riffling through mag's physically -- easily accomplished by using Bookmarks.   This could also have something to do with my magazine collection being fairly small and finite (i.e., I'm no longer buying or subscribing).

Likewise, Bookmarks let me tag and review recipes of interest within a cookbook without having to physically mark pages in the book.  Being able to look them over as a group is an additional bonus of the 'virtual' method.  Another benefit: can be applied to indexed cookbooks I don't own, so that if/when I get hold of one, via library checkout or borrowing from a friend,  I'm ready to plunge in.

Originally Posted by: ellabee

A while ago I tried Agaillard's suggestion for sorting magazines seasonally (in response to a post by her or another member here), but find that I'd rather search for inspiration by reading over lists of recipes on EYB than riffling through mag's physically -- easily accomplished by using Bookmarks.   This could also have something to do with my magazine collection being fairly small and finite (i.e., I'm no longer buying or subscribing).

Yes, if all my magazines were on EYB that is what I would do or do at least in conjunction :) But I have magazines that are more rare, so not indexed, or from France, or other countries, so the season order still helps a lot!

But yeah mine not small :) :) :) I think about 50-ish, and yep I still buy more :) Not so much for the recipes, but you know, the articles !

All my magazines are in chronological order and my collection is way beyond huge :-)

Like Agaillard I have stored my magazines by the month for years.  I have some glass-front bookcases from Ikea that I stack all the magazines on the shelves in neat piles by the month.  Even though I use EYB to search for recipes, quite often I still pull out the original magazine that has the recipe I found on EYB.  I also just love to grab a pile of September Bon Appetit, Gourmet, Saveur, Cooking Light, etc. and browse through them all.  The photos often draw me to a recipe that I would never have tried 10-20 years ago but now looks like fun.  So many of my older issues aren't indexed so it is really helpful to have them all sorted at least by month.  I do have all the old Bon Appetit yearly indexes and the master index for Cooks Illustrated but now that I have EYB I don't use them as much as I used to for searching for recipes.  By the way if anyone wants a 1996 Bon Appetit yearly index I somehow ended up with 2 and I would be happy to send the second one on to another EYB member.

I have been saving by-the-month forever.  A precious hoard are the old Gourmets mixed in with Bon Appetit.  I do use the EYB indexes,as well as going to the issues when a member reviews someting good in Notes.  I'm surprised at how my tastes (and abilities) have changed; what looks good now in a picture for me as a single "gourmet" cook would not have caught my eye as a mother feeding a large clan.  And...ahem...there are lots of recipes marked with a ripped piece of TP!

Rivergait,

LOL - hey, as a mom you have to multitask!

Ony conclusion from reading this correspondence is we are all nuts, with far more books and mags than we can really use - but we like it that way! It's nice to know one is not alone,

You make a good point Ericg, I'm guilty of having the odd stack here and there for space reasons but they do move around a bit so no one book takes all the abuse. Nice tip on magazines Agaillard. I've just taken the plunge and cut out recipes I wanted and thrown the rest of the magazine for space reasons (limited storage pending move to France) but if I start buying again I'll definitely bear this in mind. Love eating seasonally.