"I got on the horn right away when I heard the magazine was closing," library director Marvin Taylor told the paper. "It's fascinating because you can see the various trends that Gourmet covered. . . . There are six or eight shelves of Cajun books. The same was true for Mediterranean books. There's a very large Asian selection."

The books arrive at the library later this week, and will be available to NYU-affiliated people as well as to "private scholars" who make prior appointments.