Well, two places.
First, at the beginning of 2024, we moved the travel section on the 2nd floor to another location on the 2nd floor—to the aisle where we previously housed the Children's section. We now have all our new fiction books in the corner "nook" facing Post Street on the 2nd floor.
Second, while reviewing our travel collection, we found many changes in the travel book industry during the pandemic. Two publishers no longer publish print guides: Michelin and Time Out, though they both now have websites to which you can subscribe. On these websites, you can plan your trip and obtain a printout of your itinerary.
The economic chaos of the pandemic made most of the travel books published before 2020 hopelessly out of date. Travel book publishers understand this too, and have started to turn out new editions of old favorites and new titles as well. The Mechanics Institute Library keeps track of the popularity of a given book in our collection (measured by the number of times a book gets checked out) and purchases the newest editions of the most popular travel guides.
We have found some of the books in our travel section offer somewhat timeless information that rarely goes out of date. Rather than provide listings of restaurants, shops, hotels, or stores, these books describe art, architecture, fountains, historical sites, views, mountains, castles, neighborhoods, murals, buildings, and more.
For example, the series with the titles: 111 places in [Location] that you must not miss, contains a 2-page description of each of 111 sites, a brief history, and the address and/or directions to find it. A notable book in this series, 111 places in San Francisco you must not miss has an entry for the Mechanics Institute.
The National Geographic Traveler series books also do not go out of date. They contain listings of festivals and events, in addition to the physical locations. Search our catalog for "National Geographic traveler" to see a list of the titles we have in this series.
We also have 2 of Art Historian Alta Macadam's "Blue Guide" books: Rome and Florence. Although these contain outdated listings of hotels and restaurants, we keep these in our collection for detailed descriptions of the art, architecture, history, monuments, and more -- you can consult more up-to-date travel books for the more prosaic information.
