The library serves research needs of faculty, doctoral, Masters (MMH) and undergraduate students in the Cornell School of Hotel Administration (SHA). SHA is the premier hospitality management school in the world.  The School’s mission is to educate the next generation of leaders for the world's largest and most dynamic industry.

Overall, the Libraries’ existing collection and current acquisitions commitment, based upon available resources, for Hospitality Management including Travel and tourism and Real Estate as a financial asset is at the research level. Cooking, Food and beverages are at a very strong study and teaching level.

The library's collection also includes a large collection of menus and rare books that are held in the Cornell Library's Rare and Manuscript Collections, located in the Carl A. Kroch Library.  Our Restaurant Menu Database serves as a finding aid for the menu collection. 

Our rare book collection, known as the Herndon-Vehling Collection, was developed from gifts-in-kind received from J. B. Herndon, Jr.(1898-1953) and Mrs. Alice Statler, who purchased the collection of J. D. Vehling for the library.

Our collection also features electronic copies of all of the doctoral theses prepared here in the Hotel School.

• In recent years the Nestlé Library has become more selective about collecting cookbooks. Overall, we seek to have a minimal representation of cookbooks in the following areas: International/ethnic cookery, Regional cookery within the United States, Award-winning cookbooks, World-renowned restaurants’ cookbooks and World-renowned chefs’ cookbooks

• The Nestlé Library does not acquire fiction titles.

• Foreign language materials are generally not purchased for the collection unless the material provides hospitality-related information that cannot be found elsewhere in the English language.

• First, the Library relies on internet access to hotel, bed-and-breakfast and restaurant directories.  These materials are selectively purchased for large geographic areas (i.e., United States, Europe).

• Because of the expensive nature of market research reports, these items are avoided.  The Library provides access to market research reports through several electronic collections including Mintel, Euromonitor Passport, IBIS World and Business Source Complete.

• The Nestlé Library does not actively collect print indexes.  Exceptions will be made to support research and curriculum needs when hospitality-related information cannot be found in electronic format. Due to the advent & popularity of electronic indexes, the library has ceased its subscriptions to the majority of its print indexes. 

• With the development of online periodical collections, the library has stopped purchasing materials in microforms

• Formats collected: Electronic format is preferred. We collect annuals, monographs; periodicals, newspapers, reference tools, scholarly series and textbooks selectively.

• Imprint Dates Collected: We collect current publications extensively and earlier materials on request.

• Chronological Focus: We collect materials focusing on current business, industry and research topics and earlier topics selectively.

• Languages Collected: We collect English language materials.  Materials in non-English languages are purchased on request.  Non-English materials may also be purchased for Area Studies collections.

• Place of Publication: We collect materials published in North America and Western Europe, and other countries selectively.