To Add Or Not To Add, That Is The Question

Note: I started to write this post shortly after the events described below happened. I fully intended to publish it shortly thereafter, but I ended up taking a right at Albuquerque and things went a little askew. I still think this is an important issue, so I'm still publishing it.

I finally gave in and admitted to myself that I was never going to play the copy of Cards Against Humanity that I'd purchased a long while back. Since I'd never even opened it, I decided to bring it in and donate it to the library where I work. We have a small game collection that I'm planning to grow, so why not? Right? I brought it in and handed it off so the game could start along the windy path all items follow in my library to be added to the collection. Then, a couple of days later, this copy of CAH came back to me because someone who works for me - rightly - had reservations about adding it to the collection. I'll admit I felt a little defensive. Like most people, I don't like to have my mistakes pointed out, but since I didn't want to make a decision from that initial reaction, I took it back and said I'd think about it.

Then I turned to Twitter. And to friends. I turned to WorldCat to see who else owned it. I thought about it overnight. I'll explain how I made my decision in the following paragraphs, but let me cut to the chase first: we are not adding it to my current library's collection.

How I arrived at that decision was somewhat circuitous, but in the end the biggest factor with whether or not to add something to a collection should always come down to context. Here are most of, if not all, of the arguments I saw and/or had:

• The whole point of CAH is to be offensive. To make you cringe, and then laugh at your own discomfort. I don't enjoy that kind of humor, personally, but I don't want to get in the way of people who do.
• Context is so important with offensive materials. For instance, libraries stock Mein Kampf so we can learn from history (although, considering the fact that we have Nazis in this country again, it didn't work).
• We don't yet have a collection development policy for our board game collection, so how can I really include or disallow anything? (We obviously need to write one.)
• Some might try to call this game satire of a sort, but satire needs to punch up and this game does a lot of punching down. Disrespecting and making fun of disenfranchised and disadvantaged groups is not satire - it's cruelty.
• Board games have more power than other objectionable things to do immediate harm. All I could think about was students checking this game out of the library and playing it in the student union, and having a transgender student or a disabled student walk by and overhear. Reading a horrible book only impacts the person reading it.
• I know this isn't censorship. My library has printers, and CAH is open source, so students can still play. We don't have rules about what people can and can't print, so I am not blocking their access to it.

I know how other libraries handle this game. I specifically sought out other librarians who handle games collections to ask their opinion. So that copy of CAH ended up in the recycling.

Please note that I reserve the right to delete comments on this post or close comments all together. I know I've opened myself to claims of censorship, despite the last point in the bullet list above. I used to be a free speech purist, but I know better now. Words can do harm.

Shame and Reading: Some Thoughts on Popular Reading Materials

I've been thinking a lot about shame and reading lately. I had a conversation recently in which I started to feel a little ashamed of my reading habits, and realized I shouldn't. (This wasn't because of anything the other person said or did. Just fighting habits of years feeling like I was supposed to read "important" literature.) Feeling ashamed can transfer in so many ways, both personally and professionally. Sure, I am the director of library services at a community college that serves 4 different counties, have a deep and wide intellect and curiosity for learning, and seem to have an addiction to attaining advanced degrees. But I'm also a human being who lives in this culture that seems designed to degrade and depress (capitalism is the worst). Why shouldn't I read fun things?

Here are some books that I'm either currently reading or have finished recently (meaning within the last few weeks):

• Dead Heat by Patricia Briggs. It's in the middle of two intertwined series - "Alpha and Omega" and "Mercy Thompson" - which are these wonderfully written books set in a world with werewolves and vampires and fae and magic, but with politics and history that is ostensibly the same as the United States in which I live. Reading these books is like slipping into a warm bath. They aren't particularly page-turner-y, with suspense and intrigue, but they are comfortable and soothing.
• Moving Pictures by Terry Pratchett. Oh, how I love the "Discworld" series. These books are expertly written parodies of sword & sorcery that still stay true to the tropes and functions of the genre it parodies. This one in particular made fun of Hollywood and popular culture. And I loved it.
• The Beak of the Finch by Jonathan Weiner. Part biography, part history of science (evolution), part science, and all rivetingly interesting. Everything from Darwin to a discussion of the arms race going on between bacteria and the makers of antibiotics.
• Kindred by Octavia Butler. An African-American woman keeps getting pulled back to pre-Civil War Maryland to save a white ancestor of hers. Engrossing commentary on race and politics and capitalism and gender and a bazillion other concepts.

As you can see, my reading ranges from works that are more ephemeral and fluffy to books that some consider part of the American canon. What's more - I checked every single one of these out from a library, which is as it should be. And for those of you who work at public libraries, you're likely nodding your head and thinking, "Of course! How is this even a question? Why are you even writing about it, Jessica?" I'm not really talking to you. 

I'm talking, instead, to the academic libraries that are still holding out from buying popular reading materials. First of all, it is an entirely defensible expense: People are writing academic discourse on Stephen King and Cormac McCarthy and Amy Tan and a bazillion other so called popular authors. In the past, Jane Austen and Shakespeare and Horatio Alger were all popular authors who have been studied again and again in the intervening years. I'm sure you have a popular culture scholar or two on your campus who would add their voice to your argument. Second, even if you are down the street from a public library (which is somewhat rare), why are you passing responsibility ignoring the needs and wants of your community? Third, the ability to sustain attention reading is a transferable skill. 

In my life before academia, I worked in a book store, and I'll never forget a conversation I had with a regular customer. I was talking about some piece of fluff I'd read recently, and then I berated myself for not reading "good" books more often. Her response was, "a 'good' book is the one you enjoy."

I know that we in academic libraries are supposed to support the scholarly record and the curriculum and the research needs of our communities, but shouldn't we also support the other needs of our patrons? Why are we shaming them about their interests in reading by leaving fun books out of our collections? Even if we aren't shaming them on purpose, it is still shaming. Besides, if we're trying to get people to value the library, shouldn't we be providing materials we know they will appreciate? Buy some good books.

To New Collections Librarians, by Lindsay Cronk

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Felicitations- you have inherited a great fortune. It takes the form of books, journals, databases, films, music, and maybe a few umbrellas (yes, I mean literal umbrellas). That’s because a great collection provides what people need, and so whether your collection is big or small, established or infant, budget-intensive or built on donations, you are the inheritor of a great collection - even if you can’t see that yet. I urge you now and always to consider the splendor, eccentricity, and charm of your library’s collection. You may fall in love. I have done so many times. Being a collection development librarian is appreciating, improving, and attending to your magnificent inheritance.

I say “yours” and I mean it. While others will have pieces, and while your collection will be developed in service of your community, you will be the one who sees it holistically rather than in individual experience. This part of the work is a responsibility and a privilege. I say yours, but I also mean “theirs” and “ours,” because your collection is a generous thing, built for sharing, inspiring, and celebrating your community. This part of the work is a true joy.

I encourage you to ask your coworkers why there is an extensive collection of monographs on flora and fauna of the Southwest or Hungarian Festshriven [Editor’s Note: there was a very old book about domestic breeds of cattle in the first collection I ever managed. We never figured out why it was there in a small, liberal arts college library, but we all fell a little in love with it and kept it.]. There will always be an answer, though sometimes no one will remember it. In such cases assume the answer is that your predecessors were trying their best. The longer you are in it, the more familiar the collection will become, but it will never be less weird than it is on the first day, and it will be weird. Maybe you will be particularly lucky and it will be SUPER WEIRD. Explore your collection- your inheritance- and remain grateful for it. Because the collection is going to make demands of you.

There is maintenance, planning, management, and development. The collection is alive to need; and, as a result, the responsive collection can be at times unknowable. You will never get to focus on just an inventory or a weeding project. As you hone in on necessary maintenance, you will also be helping to grow the collection to meet the needs of your community and getting to know that community. It will be challenging to track what the collection was and what it is becoming, but you will try your best, and you will succeed. You will develop your rhythm of activities.

There is so much pride to take in your inheritance, which will move and inspire people who use your collection. They may produce scholarship or art or other cool things, and then you can collect what they make. Those people are also inheritors in their way- they share your inheritance and benefit from your stewardship. And sometimes, people will be annoyed to find that their something specific isn’t in there. You will receive angry emails, and you will not always meet expectations. The collection will be imperfect and serviceable. It is a great collection if you find that people are more often satisfied than they are not.

Because when you inherit a collection, you become more aware of the logistical and unseen connections between all the collections of the libraries of the world through the magic of ILL, collaborative print, OA projects, digital libraries, etc. You will learn the greater context of your collection, and discover that it is endless in terms of the access you can facilitate. It’s an incredible time to be a collection librarian, as your inheritance is made greater through collaboration and cooperation. The collection is not defined by the boundaries of your library, the limits of your space or even your budget.

This inheritance of yours, vibrant and expanding, demanding and impossible to know, it is yours only for a while. All around you are incredible materials- in some cases the life’s work people you may never meet, whose efforts are evident on every shelf on every subject guide on every list of databases. A collection is an incredible wealth, and you are the latest in a series of stewards. Your legacy will be forever intertwined with the work of unseen coworkers, past and future.

Consider this resonance when you find a moment, perhaps in those challenging moments as you grapple with budget decisions or at after a difficult meeting with stakeholders. The timbre, deep beauty, and span of the collection is its own meditation. In such moments, remember again that you have inherited a great fortune, and others will inherit it from you. Be grateful and be gracious, collections require both.

Lindsay Cronk is the Head of Collection Strategies, University of Rochester River Campus Libraries. This is the second time she’s written for LtaYL; the first was an interview. She tweets at @linds_bot.

What's Next? Strengthening Our Communities Ahead of the Incoming Administration

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I'll admit it. I've been lax about some things in the time since I became a library director. In my defense, the list of things I needed to do when I first started was intimidatingly long and I focused on things that were major conflagrations - opting to leave the fire hazards in place because there's only so much time in a day and only so much energy in a person. But now those fire hazards, those small sparks, need attention since the incoming administration seems to want to pour gasoline over all of us.

Here are a few things I've been meaning to do that will be at the top of my list, along with some things I've been doing all along but that will get even more attention.

1. Privacy Audit. I've been meaning to do this for years now. I printed out and read a bunch of materials, such as this checklist from ALA, but there was always something that got in the way of execution. No more. This will be at the top of my priority list.
2. Disaster Preparedness, Including Active Shooter Response Training. I made some progress on this project, but again things got in the way. I need to make this a priority, so I will probably invoke liability to get people's attention. I found Library As Safe Haven helpful when I did have a chance to do this work, and will pull it back out now that I'm making it a priority.
3. Inclusive Collection Development, Programs, and Outreach. I've talked before on this blog about how we will do displays about and for disadvantaged groups, but we make a point of doing it beyond the typical time frame. For example, we had a display on protest culture and civil rights activists, yes, but not in February. Also, I'm planning to spend a good chunk of our collection development budget on beefing up our resources for and by underrepresented voices.
4. Safe Space Building. I went through Safe Space training recently, and the facilitators talked about how it's possible to have your entire building or department be designated a Safe Space. It means everyone who works in the building has to go through the training, so it's going to be a reach, but I want to try. If any building on this campus should be a Safe Space, it's the library.
5. Adding Language to Our Mission/Vision/Values Statements. Our goal of being inclusive (which does not mean neutral... you all know that, right?) is woven throughout our guiding documents, but it isn't stated anywhere explicitly. It needs to be.

So that's what I know I can do. What I think we should all do. But I know there is more, so please comment with what you're doing and what we call can do.

Popular Culture in the Academic Library: Community Building

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When I was a fresh out of grad school librarian, I didn't realize that embracing popular culture things - I use "things" for lack of a better umbrella term - as outreach and community building was in anyway abnormal. 13+ years into my career, I know it was very unusual back then and is still sadly uncommon now. Here are some of the things I currently embrace and/or have embraced in the past:

1. Gaming events in the library. In the past I've hosted Humans vs. Zombies, a Super Smash Brothers tournament, and board game events at more than one library. The video game tournament wasn't as successful for relationship building, but every single other event I've listed was a huge success for the library. We got to know the students/faculty/staff of the school and they got to know us.
2. Graphic novel collections. My first library job in higher ed was at a college that specifically worked with students who have learning differences (ADHD/dyslexia/etc.). For so many of those students, and students I've worked with since, the library represented what they couldn't do well. Sequential art, on the other hand, uses different parts of the brain for processing than what we use for reading just words. My first graphic novel collection was a way to reach out to students and to get them in the library. It worked so well that I've created similar collections everywhere else I've worked.
3. Popular press fiction and nonfiction collections. I've been lucky to work with a lot of popular culture scholars in my library career. From the biomedical humanities professor who studied film to the Cormac McCarthy scholar and beyond, I was responsible for collecting works of and about popular appeal "things." That's the traditional reason for academic libraries to have such collections. But I saw the crossover appeal to pleasure reading/viewing/etc. in those collections at a school with no other source of books/movies/etc. in walking distance. 
4. Service to consortia. Two of my three library jobs in higher ed were at libraries that participated in large consortia: OhioLINK and Delaware Libraries. Smaller schools are typically net borrowers, so having popular music or movies or books can help even out the imbalance.
5. Board game collections. This is my most recent endeavor, and it's still fairly unusual for an academic library to have a circulating board game collection, but it's one of my favorite things I've done. It started out purely as an outreach maneuver. We have a group on campus called "Campus of the Nerds," and I was seeing them in the library a lot anyway. Creating the board game collection was a way to support a new student club, but it's also been a great tool for getting to know faculty and staff and other students. We've even gotten suggestions for board games to add, and getting any kind of request from our community is rare even when we solicit requests.

I know I've beaten this particular drum before, but it's a big thing for me. Community building is key to all libraries, and it's not just about the services we provide. Academic libraries of all makes and models could easily add these kinds of collections and this kind of outreach. You know what? Let me fix that sentence: all libraries should embrace these kinds of collections and outreach.

Even For Academics, Selection Is Privilege

I try to keep abreast of what is going on in other spheres of the library world besides my own, especially the awards like the American Library Association Youth Media Awards. We have children's literature collection in my current library, a collection that supports an education major among other things, so you can see why it's a no-brainer for me to pay attention to these things.

So... when I learned about this year's list of winners, my first thought was about the purchase order request I was going to have to fill out soon. My second thought was elation because When I Was the Greatest by Jason Reynolds was recognized for the awesomeness it contains. My final thought was that I really have to get around to reading Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson because holy guacamole it keeps winning awards. And that was where my thoughts ended... until now.

What happened? I learned that there are people - librarians! - who are upset at the fact that the winners were more diverse than they have been in a long time. My reaction:

Amy Koester wrote about how this all happened in a piece titled "Selection is Privilege." Her argument is a good and important one. Of course, Koester's focus is, understandably, on best methods for serving her public library community. Her perspective is somewhat different from how I've worked in the past, but the truth is, this focus on diversity is no less important for those of us in the academic library business. Diversity in my children's literature collection that we maintain to support the education department? Crucial. Diversity in our popular reading materials? Equally important. Beyond that, providing access to a broad range of authors and topics is key to the role of a library at a small academic library that serves the community at a liberal arts college. The materials we have here absolutely must be both broad and deep. Our budget is small, but I've made sure that we spend at least a small portion every year on books about and by underrepresented groups. It's important to my community and to me, and it has been important for a long time.

I'm grateful to Koester for making me think about this and for starting the conversation. Part of me had started to take it for granted that everyone thinks this way, especially since I tend to surround myself with like minded people. But I know this approach has been an evolution in the way I do collection development. I have to admit I wasn't as thoughtful in my approach when I was a new librarian. Ms. Koester helped me remember that not everyone has had the same realizations and opportunities I have.

I'm not sure what else I want to say about this because, to me, it's not a matter for debate. However, it seems that public libraries are sometimes as resistant to diverse books as the publishing industry. I'd like to hear about how other academic libraries handle diversity in their collections. Is it a conscious effort? Or is it a catch-as-catch-can kind of thing where you just buy what you buy without any kind of thought about representation? Or, worst of all, do you find your collection development is dictated by the same kind of cop-outs Koester quoted in her post, such as "We have a copy, but I can count the number of black patrons my library has in two weeks on one hand."?

I know I'm often preaching to the choir here, but more than most posts, I hope this has given you something to think about.

Talkin' 'Bout Weeding

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This post outlines the approach I use when weeding a library's physical collection. I'm going to assume that you already have established criteria for your own weeding projects. If you want more on that, there are lots of helpful articles and texts out there. Also, I've written about how I weeded my reference collection if you want an overview from me. However, that's not what I want to talk about today. Instead, I want to talk about how I involve members of my community in the decisions.

Before I begin, let me lay all the caveats on you. My methods for communicating with faculty about deaccessioning/weeding books and other materials have always worked for me. The one time I had someone get fussy, it was super minor and I headed it off by making a small concession. Even though I've had no real problems with this approach, I also know that it is not a cure-all. As you look through what I've written, know that I've worked exclusively at academic libraries that were part of small colleges where I have/had personal relationships with the faculty (we weren't always on the best of terms, we did at least speak regularly). Also, I have never had to weed a collection with a super-quick turnaround time. In other words: your mileage may vary,

Now, onto the good stuff.

The first part of my process is to go through the criteria established by the library and pull all the books I/we want to weed and set them aside. How much I do at a time has always been determined by space constraints. Usually it's one or two carts. It's crucial to make sure I have room to leave them where they won't get in the way because they may be there for a while. You'll see why in a moment.

Second, I contact the faculty who use the books that we're weeding. When we weeded the 800s (yes, I'm at a Dewey library), I contacted all of our English faculty for feedback. There have been times that I've contacted just the chair of a department, but usually I contact everyone. 

This contact is the contact crucial step. I've crafted my words carefully and I'll explain why after I share the text of an email I sent recently - on 10/20/14 - as we started weeding the 900s.

"One of the biggest complaints we get from students about the library’s collection is how old and out of date it is. (Based on results of the exiting senior survey from last academic year.) We take those comments with more than the proverbial grain of salt, of course, but there is some truth to their concern. We add newer materials as our budget allows, and that will help, but we are also trying to cut down the existing collection to make room for the new materials.

The two professional librarians here have 33 years of library experience between us. Add to that the fact that we've also gotten our graduate assistant to help since he is a recent graduate of the history department. The thing is, though, we’re not experts in your fields of study. And that’s where you come in:

We’ve pulled books from the 900s (history) section of our collection that don’t seem to fit the current curriculum or your areas of research, but would love if you could double check. [Name of librarian] has a cart in her office right now with the books we’ve pulled. This will be an ongoing process, so there will be more books to check in the future, but if you could stop by sometime before 10/31 we’d appreciate it. After that point we’re going to assume that you trust our judgment, and move on.

Thanks ahead of time,

Jessica"

Things I included:

• Citing student satisfaction, or lack thereof. This is another way to use the data you collect: to help you tell your story.
• Citing library expertise. 
• Appealing to faculty expertise.
• Being up front about the fact that this process will take a while.
• Giving them a deadline.

Things I did not include:

• Any mention of specific criteria.
• Specific numbers relating to how many books we'll weed, how many books we'll buy, or how many complaints we received.

Third and final step is to make sure someone is present when the faculty members come by to look at the books. This is the point at which we answer questions about our criteria, but I have to tell you that is a rare event. I also make sure to tell faculty that we're happy to keep any and all of the books we've set aside, but that most of them will have to be replaced with newer editions that aren't falling apart or stinky or whatever else.

There have been a few times I've deviated from this method, such as the time I begged the Victorianist to come help me go through that part of our fiction collection. But this is the method I've stuck to for a while now, with variations on the themes in that letter above being the crucial part of the process.

How about you? How do you communicate with your patrons about weeding? I'm especially curious about how non-academic libraries approach this.

Books: Important Symbol or Annoying Physical Reality?

The question in the title is something that I've spent a lot of time considering. It's plagued me almost since the very beginning of my career, but I think I know the answer now. "So," I can hear you asking, "what are books? Are they an important physical reality? Or are they a magical symbol?" My answer: Both.

Why am I bringing this up now? Lately there's been a flurry of controversy about libraries DARING to get rid of their books in favor of other things - study space, computer labs, learning commons, coffee shops, etc. Part of me thinks those must have been slow news days, since libraries have always weeded their collections. But, slow news days or not, there has been a lot of outrage and I can't ignore it. Since I'm most definitely a bibliophile, I can understand the impulse to treasure the printed word. However, as someone who's hip-deep in what is probably going to be a multi-year weeding project, I can also speak to the annoying, dust-covered reality of old books. So here I am with a blog post.

Here's a brief list of the specific things that prompted me to sit down and write this post:

First, there was a click bait article, "Save Our Stacks: It's not about the books. It's about the books representing the last place on campus where intellectual contemplation thrives." (That link is one I created using DoNotLink.com, so you won't be rewarding them with hits if you want to read it.)

Second, there was a conversation on Twitter in response to that piece of click bait (the conversation started with the tweet I embedded below, but I highly recommend looking at the rest of what was said - especially Tom Bruno's contributions to the discussion):

someday when i have time, I'll write an article titled "Its about the books AND the symbolism of the books" #falsedichotomies
— Chris Bourg (@mchris4duke) May 12, 2014

Finally, there was another tweet a little over a week later:

Philip Deloria - libraries should have traces of the past, should also induce humility. Emotional experience of encounters with knowledge.
— barbara fister (@bfister) May 22, 2014

I don't want to descend into the "you have no idea what you're talking about, outsiders!" territory, although it's tempting - there are lots of comparisons to be made to other service professions on the tip of my tongue. But no... as tempting as it might be, that's not the point of this blog. I want to help us all be better librarians, and after a certain amount of griping it becomes counterproductive. Instead, I want to talk about my desire to find a middle ground, a way of accommodating the visceral responses of those who fetishize the printed word while still serving their real needs.

That phrase, "their real needs," sounds a bit high handed even to me - and I'm the one who wrote it. But really, I can't help thinking about Jakob Nielsen's piece, "First Rule of Usability? Don't Listen to Users," and a related quote from Steve Jobs: "It's not the customer's job to know what they want." I'm not Steve Jobs. I'm not even Jakob Nielsen. As much as I might admire those men for their clear vision, I don't feel comfortable dismissing community voices. This means I can't go into "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" mode with collection development. Books are absolutely a symbol, and an important one at that. As I've said many times before, no matter what else we might be/do/have, "the library brand is still books."

All of this means that no matter how annoying the physical reality of books might get, gathering dust, attracting bedbugs, rotting in colorfully staining ways, I can't disregard the symbolism. So I communicate as much as I can with my community when we weed. We have posted a sign near our book sale area that explains how books end up on those shelves. I give faculty in related departments a heads up when we are weeding, doing everything I can to solicit their feedback. When I run into people in my community who don't want to listen, I deal with it on a case by case basis - sometimes giving in to their wishes, sometimes insisting on the library's needs, and sometimes finding a compromise. 

My point is that we need to respect the dual nature of the books within the library's walls. As Chris Bourg said, "It's about the books AND the symbolism of the books." And, no matter what, always remember to stroke the spines of the nastiest ones. 

(context)

How about you? Do you have a preferred method for dealing with the false dichotomy?

Journey into the Realm...of Graphic Novels, by Andrew Shuping

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So you want to know about graphic novels, yes? Well you’ve come to the right place. What have you learned about these fantastic items so far? What’s that? That they’re just “comic books”?? And that they’re only for children?? No! Whoever provided you with that information is wrong! Graphic novels are so much, much more. Now take a seat and we’ll begin our tale...

So back when I was working on my MLIS, I came across an article about a book, Daisy Kutter and the Last Train by Kazu Kibuishi, and how it could be used in the classroom. The article kept talking about how this type of book was called a “graphic novel,” due to the fact that it was an illustrated story. Given my background in art...color me intrigued. The bits of the story and the images shared in the article made me buy the book sight unseen from Amazon....and I was blown away. The story, the art, it all worked together in perfect harmony to create this fantastic journey that captivated me. I remember showing my family, friends, coworkers...and basically anyone else I could trying to get them as excited about the book as I was. And that’s when I discovered it...the problem with trying to get other people excited about graphic novels, is that they look at them as just big comic books or worse “picture books” for kids. It’s a problem that I’ve had to battle time and time again since then. [Editor’s Note: Me, too. Countless times.] And I’ve finally come up with a good way to talk about it.

It seems as if the biggest problem people have with graphic novels, is that they’re pictures with words, so that means it’s a kids’ book. Or it’s about superheroes, so it’s a comic and pfff there’s no way comics can be real literature. Because for some reason we keep equating pictures to a lower level of reading. I don’t know when this type of thinking became common, but frankly it’s the biggest lie that someone has ever told. Why’s that? Because the ability to read images is the oldest language in the world. Seriously. We’ve been using images with cave paintings, stained glass windows, political dissent paintings, political cartoons, road signs, door signs all to convey a story or a message. Images are our universal language. It’s why so many symbols across the globe are easy to recognize. We understand them, regardless of language, age, gender, or anything else. There’s a greater power in a single image than a thousand words. Memory, emotions, smells, touch, all of our senses are engaged with one image. For example, pull out a picture that you’ve taken. Just think about it for a minute. How many pages could you write about what that single image conveys? Where you were, who you were with, what you were feeling, what you were thinking, and on and on. That’s the power of a graphic novel.

So did I use that argument to start building the graphic novel collection at my library? Well....no. It took me a while to come up with that argument, but it’s what I use know when I talk about graphic novels. Even though I knew all of those things, putting them into words was a wee bit harder. So the argument that I used went something like this:

Me: “People are reading them. And our students want them.”

Others: “So? They read lots of things, doesn’t mean that we should buy them.”

Me: “OK...well we’ve got Maus Volume One and Persepolis Volume Two. Can we at least complete those sets?”

Others: “Fine.”

Me: “Well...while we’re at it these books here recently won some big awards, like Eisner’s and National Book Awards, etc.”

Other: “Fine, give me the titles and I’ll look at it. No guarantees though!”

And that’s how the collection I built started. A small tiny crack that was already there and I built upon it and kept building. I snuck in some that were YA, because who was going to look twice at a picture book in that section?

I was able to sneak in some adaptations of Shakespeare's plays because I could say they help different reading styles. Don’t try to say “No they don’t” because they do. I remember trying to read plays and I’d get overwhelmed with the way they were laid out.

Name says: “forsoth I say!”

Other name says: “I say I thumb my nose at your forsoth and hail all hail!”

Name says: “forsoth I say!”

Other name says: “I say I thumb my nose at your forsoth and hail all hail!”

Name says: “forsoth I say!”

Other name says: “I say I thumb my nose at you!”

And it went on like that for pages and pages. It was bad enough trying to figure out some of the words used during that time period, but just seeing it laid out like that...my brain could just barely handle it. And then I found the graphic novel adaptations and everything came to life for me. I didn’t have to worry about reading the queues written as words, I could focus on the characters and read them! I could see how they were acting and reacting and what they were saying and it all made sense. And there are countless other readers out there, yes older readers as well, for whom reading it in a graphic format makes things come alive.

The collection grew even more when a professor said, “Hey, I’m going to teach a course on graphic novels. Do you think we can order more of them?” That’s when the floodgates opened. I was able to buy the books that students had been begging for. Ones that challenged our notions of thinking, that told history in comic format, that told stories, or just entertained and helped the reader escape the day to day for a few hours. I bought graphic novels for all areas: fiction, nonfiction, biography, science, history, sociology even economics. As long as the books were rated well, I bought them and encouraged students and teachers to use them as sources, for extra knowledge, whatever to get them used.

That’s how it began for me. Every place is going to be a little bit different but there are some solid rules to get the collection started no matter what type of library you work in.

1. Every book has it’s reader. I know that sounds trite, but seriously we buy books that many of us would rather never see, but our readers like them. The same holds true for graphic novels. Readers like them, why not buy them?

2. Just because the book is written in pictures, doesn’t mean it takes less skill to read it. In fact there are studies that prove that it takes more effort to read and process an image, because you’re focusing on so many different factors all at once. The position of the character, their facial expressions, what happens in the gutter spaces (those white spaces between panels) and more. There are entire books written about reading comics. Go check out Scott McCloud’s books to learn more.

3. Partner with people. Whether you’re in a school, university, community, whatever, get other people that want graphic novels to start talking about them - especially to each other. Get them to pester others at the library or start a petition to get a collection started. Members of your community are the best resources that you have.

4. Two guidelines that work together:
1. Start small. Once you get permission, don’t try to buy everything out there unless you were told you could do so (and if that happens, you’re very lucky.) Find out how much you can spend and make a priority list of what you want first.
2. Have a policy. It doesn’t have to be a long one, maybe just a couple of paragraphs, but it helps you start building the collection. One of the things on my initial list: no long running comic series and no manga. This annoys some of my patrons, but I’m limited by cost and space. I can buy stand alone comics: All-Star Superman, the Killing Joke, etc. and I’ll buy short run manga series: Buddha for example, but otherwise we have to wait.

5. Sell the collection as a way to support education. Tie it into what’s going on in the community. Big movement to study other cultures in the schools or community, or people of diverse backgrounds? Buy books like: American Born Chinese, A Home for Mr. Easter, Kampung Boy and more. Need books in the sciences? Books like Primates, Genius, Laika, Feynman, and others fit in nicely.

Those are the basics of what I can offer. Yes there will still be people that claim that graphic novels “aren’t real books” because they have pictures. If they do so kindly point them towards March Book 1 by John Lewis, the last living member of the big six that helped plan the march in Washington with Martin Luther King, Jr. He is the first politician to tell his story in graphic novel format, and was a leader in the civil rights movement. Have they naysayers look at the words and the images and the story they create. Sure they could read about what it was like for Mr. Lewis and others to have water thrown on them, smoke blown in their faces, to be cursed at and shoved, all while not losing their tempers. It’s another thing to see it depicted in pictures. That’s the power that a graphic novel brings.

Andrew Shuping is currently the Interlibrary Loan & Public Services Librarian at Jack Tarver Library, Mercer University, Macon, GA. He has been involved in libraries for over nine years and collecting graphic novels for over seven years. This is his second post for LtaYL; his first was The ILLbrarian is In. Andrew can be found at ashuping.net and goes by the user name ashuping where ever he can, such as on Twitter: @ashuping.