Subject Access
One of the goals of this collection is to be accessible. For ease of searching, all materials in the North American Heritage Collection will follow Library of Congress subject headings. Library of Congress has numerous relevant subject headings for cooking and cookware. Users can search using controlled vocabulary and a tagging system in which users can tag items with descriptors will allow uncontrolled vocabulary to be used for searching, as well.
A tagging system will allow users to search for types of food or ingredients or a style of cooking. Our collection also offers several cooking and baking “kits”, called “Cooking on the Run,” that are available to check out. Users can tag phrases such as “kids baking kit” to aid the discoverability of these particular items. Care will be taken to ensure that only culturally relevant or appropriate subject headings and tags will be used. The tags will periodically be reviewed.
An example of an item record for a Pasta Maker with subject headings and tags may look like this:
Pasta Maker
Subjects:
Kitchen appliances
Cooking (pasta)
Cooking - equipment and supplies
Pasta machines
Tags:
Italian
Lasagna
Homemade
To inspire serendipitous experiences, display cases and forward facing shelves will be used to shelve and display the collection. Having the cookware displayed in a case with a description of what the item is and what it can be useful for will continue to make the collection accessible for the average user. Cookbooks will be displayed on forward facing shelves and shelf talkers will be used to provide more information on what style or region of cooking is being featured in each book.