Finding Aid to the Transportation Library Menu Collection

Scope and Content note

In addition to the physical description of the menus, certain components of the records may be of special interest to researchers. From the transportation side, the record provides (if available) the flight’s origin; its destination; trip route; travel class; type of vessel and trip’s date.

From the menu’s contents, the record includes meals served on board, a listing of items on the menu, and a sampling of representative dishes.

In addition, the record includes the donor’s name and transcribed notes found on the menu regarding flight, service, food, and wine.

Organization of the Menus

The Transportation Library and Main University Library catalogers working from a MS Word item level description document devised an EAD-XML finding aid version of the collection. Additional work enhanced and corrected the description of each menu in XML, which allowed the possibility to derive item-level MARC records directly from the finding aid if desired.