Our Crowdfunding Groups
Who We Are
UTSA Libraries Special Collections is home to UTSA’s Mexican Cookbook Collection—the largest in the nation with over 2,000 titles in English and Spanish documenting the variety and history of Mexican cuisine from 1789 to the present. The collection includes concentrations in the areas of regional cooking, healthy and vegetarian recipes, corporate advertising cookbooks, and manuscript recipe books.
Currently, there are more than 100 manuscripts, handwritten cookbooks in the collection. About 50 percent of the earliest books are digitized and available online, but only 15 percent are transcribed and available for key-word searching.
The Project
As staff and student employees work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic, the UTSA Libraries Special Collections is hoping to increase the transcription and digitization of the manuscript cookbooks in the collection.
Many of the books in the collection are penned using a traditional cursive script, and transcribing them can be a challenging and arduous task, especially those written in 19th-century Spanish which occasionally used non-standard and variant spellings. However, the work is crucial in making the collection searchable by users of our digital collections platform online. Transcribing the books allows patrons to easily find specific recipes, ingredients or keywords without having to turn page by page in each text.
Currently, the library employs one graduate student who analyzes and studies the handwritten manuscripts and transcribes their texts and content. While she is an incredible asset to the team, our goal is to provide additional support and resources to help in this vital task.
The Impact
Employing additional students to help transcribe the manuscripts in the collection will make them more accessible and available not only to San Antonio residents but also to anyone with an internet connection. The digital collections platform is available in an open-access environment and is free to all who utilize it online.
Additionally, the project provides students interested in careers in library and information science valuable experience working with special collections and archives.
What Your Gifts Will Do
Your gift will allow us to employ additional student workers, providing them valuable, hands-on experiential learning opportunities with preservation and access to rare primary source materials.
It will also support access to the UTSA Mexican Cookbook Collection to users throughout in the world. The work the students will embark on will help make the collection easily searchable and more available online.
UTSA Libraries Special Collections thanks you for your generous contribution and the help your gift will provide in making the UTSA Mexican Cookbook Collection more accessible and available to users worldwide!
We especially thank you for supporting UTSA students in gaining valuable experience with preservation, primary source material and historical archives!
Please share this project with your friends, family and colleagues and help us create experiential learning opportunities using the UTSA Mexican Cookbook Collection!
Thank you for Your Support!
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You will be recognized on the donor wall.
You will be recognized on UTSA Libraries social media.
You will receive an exclusive UTSA Libraries bookmark and be recognized on UTSA Libraries social media.
You will receive an exclusive UTSA Libraries cookbook magnet set and be recognized on UTSA Libraries social media.
You will receive an exclusive UTSA Libraries leatherbound notebook and be recognized on UTSA Libraries social media.
You will receive an exclusive UTSA Libraries leatherbound notebook and cookbook magnet set and be recognized on UTSA Libraries social media.