Throw-it Thursday: What the Manga?!

Ashley Borman, Technical Services Librarian at the Clintonville (WI) Public Library, is back with another collection development column.

We recently separated our manga books from our graphic novels and gave them their own collection. It was not a terribly difficult process (unless your tech services department likes to be difficult, then it might get a little dicey), mostly because the collection is not overly large to begin with.

First, I ran a collection report to see all the books we had in our graphic novel collection. Then I went to the shelf and grabbed the books that were checked in and clearly manga. I took these back to my desk (it’s so much easier when you are the tech services department and you are the one who wants to create the collection!) and re-coded and re-labeled them. We got manga stickers to use instead of graphic novel stickers.

After I finished changing all of the books that were on the shelf, I went through the items on the list that were not on the shelf (checked out, in transit, lost, etc.) and placed holds on all of the items I knew were manga or thought might be manga. As they come back, I am re-labeling them and sticking them in their new section if that is where they belong.

Our new manga collection is small but beautiful!

The graphic novel section is now smaller, but it is easier to find things!

Creating a School Age Graphic Novel Club

Image by Susana Gonzalez from Pixabay

Recently, Jackie Partch, writing on behalf of ALSC's School Age Programs and Services Committee in the ALSC blog wrote a great how-to post on all you need to create graphic novel programming for your school age children.

Jackie writes: "Graphic novels are wildly popular with kids–and librarians also know that they can help build visual literacy skills, increase reading confidence and strengthen vocabulary knowledge. Kids who read graphic novels also show increased reading motivation. So why not offer a graphic novel book group at your library?"

Please stop here to read this great post. [Starting a Graphic Novel Book Group at Your Library. Partch, Jackie. ALSC blog. January 8, 2025.]

Top Ten Teen Graphic Novels 2023

In a recent SLJ Teen Librarian Toolbox blog post, Angela Fredericks shared the list created by YALSA's Great Graphic Novels for Teens. Head on over and get the list and annotations! 

Children's & Teen Awards/Best Books Lists Roundup

Annually, YALSA's blogging team recommends a list of great graphic novels and illustrated nonfiction for those ages 12-18. Their list of ten titles includes annotations, review, suggested cataloging, ISBN and age range.

Stop here to see the complete list.

A tip of the hat to the WVLS Youth Services Information Exchange Facebook page for these two recent list tips.

Rise: A Feminist Book Project Top Ten List
The Feminist Task Force of the Social Responsibilities Round Table of the American Library Association.creates an annual book list of the best feminist books for young readers from birth through age 18. 

• 2024 Top Ten List
•  Past Top Ten Lists

EJK Illustrator Award

Ezra Jack Keats Award

EJK Award is given annually to an outstanding new writer and new illustrator by the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation in partnership with the de Grummond Children’s Literature Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi (USM).

The Ezra Jack Keats Award was created to nurture illustrators and writers, early in their careers, who create extraordinary books that reflect our diverse population, the universal experience of childhood and the strength of family and community. 

EJK Author Award

2024 winners and honors

LIVESTREAM the EJK Award Ceremony, April 11, 1:00pm ET (details coming soon)

About the EJK Award • All Winners & Honors • Mock EJK Award Toolkits • FAQ • EJK Award Book Discussion Guides

Tuesday Tips: Jerry Craft

Sam Jones is the Youth Services Librarian at the Beaver Dam Public Library. She shares tips to make your job easier in her Tuesday posts.

I, personally, love Jerry Craft and his New Kid series. When I saw that Craft had done an interview with The Daily Show, I was super excited to watch. I found it through this article from the School Library Journal blog 100 Scope Notes. During the interview, Craft talked about New Kid, School Trip (which just came out!), and, of course, banned books. 

Travel Grants to Chicago ALA 2023 Annual Conference

Through the Comics Librarian Conference Travel Grant, the GNCRT will support two travel grants for GNCRT members to attend the 2023 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago, IL this June.

These grants are intended to support the professional development of library workers interested in expanding their knowledge and experience with comics in libraries. Through these grants, GNCRT seeks to highlight the value “comics librarianship” brings to the field.

Each grant winner will receive reimbursement of up to $3,000 toward their attendance at the upcoming 2023 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago, IL. 

Grant applications are due April 1, 2023. Learn more at here 

Thanks to 3/10/23 Nic News Weekly for the tip!

Virtual Variety: Staff Reads

Lindy Liedl from the Rice Lake Public Library returns with her monthly column on all things virtual to help you connect with your teen patrons!

Are you sharing staff reads on your social media? You should! This is a great way to encourage check outs and connect with your patrons. Our lists always look entirely different and patrons like seeing the variety. This could even be expanded to “recent library materials enjoyed by staff” if you want to hype up your collections.

 

Our staff enters their current check outs (the ones they choose to share) into a shared Google spreadsheet–or they email a list to the post-designing staff member. This person then finds cover images of the titles and makes an adorable image post on Canva, rotating staff every week.

 

Here’s my recent one! I have a specific interest in graphic novels. Also, at the time I was really into cookbooks, but there’s some TV series there too!  If you’re in a reading slump, there’s no shame in filling a post with movies. It’s fun to see where everyone’s interests take them.

Credits: Post idea from Claire Parrish-Lane, this image created by Riley Bartsch

 

New Graphic Novel Lists

Looking to beef up your graphic novel collections for kids of all ages at your library?  The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) has you covered.

Their Quicklists Consulting committee team recently updated lists for Grades K-2; Gr 3-5 and Gr 6-8. You can access these free to download lists here.

More and More Manga: A Primer from School Library Journal

Looking to build a manga collection?  School Library Journal has your back!

Brigid Alverson's SLJ.com article, More and More Manga: An Updated Primer on Japanese Comic Books and Graphic Novels , introduces the basics: terminology, publishers, and more...  

Grow, collections, GROW!

ALL.THE.THINGS. With Jonathan Dolce - March 2022

Image by Gerhard G. from Pixabay 

Jonathan Dolce is back at the ALSC blog with his monthly celebration of program ideas and quirky finds. 

As always if you are looking for ideas, inspiration and a few laughs, you can't do better than checking out this hefty post. From upcoming important days and weeks to celebrate, a deep dive into comics and graphic novels all the way to fun activities for kids and parent resources, Jonathan has it all.

Check out this month's post here (March Activities, News, STEM, and More. Dolce, Jonathan. ALSC Blog 2/27/21)

ALL.THE.THINGS. With Jonathan Dolce - February 2022

Pixabay Image

Jonathan Dolce, who blogs at the ALSC blog, is a most generous and prolific gatherer of information and cool - and often, free - links and resources that can spark our creativity in providing service to children and teens.

His columns are brain dumps in the best sense. Dolce provides dozens and dozens of links to program ideas, collection alerts, pop culture and media be-aware's and so much more. He doesn't disappoint in February where he will seriously lift you out of any winter and pandemic programming or idea doldrums.

Check out his latest ALSC blogpost Winterizing  Your Library Programming here.

15 LGBTQ Graphic Novels for Middle Graders, courtesy of Book Riot

Looking to amp up your LGBTQIA+ graphic novel offerings?  Check out THIS sweet, sweet list recently shared on Book Riot!

The list contains well-known favorites as well as newer titles to hit the shelves.

Did your favorite make the list?  Anything you would add?

Just Wondering - Who is Cataloging Really For?

This post by Manitowoc (WI) Public Library Youth Librarian and YSS Board Member Susie Menk explores staff vs patron needs in placement of books in the collection. And she's wondering....what do you think? 

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

So I would like to pose a question to you today.  In libraries, the recent trend has been to make collections more user friendly.  Go to subject headings and groupings of books by topics instead of by authors.  Hence our recently completed picture book city cataloguing project.  We want our patrons to find the library easy to use so we have adapted many of our traditions of cataloguing in favor of colorful, eye catching labels and topical groupings similar to bookstores. 

I am all for doing this to make our library a friendly place for users.  We want them to come in and browse.  We want the parents and children and teens to be able to find books easily and without always asking a service desk staff person.  We want our BIPOC populations and people with disabilities to enter our library and feel comfortable searching our shelves.  We want people who are struggling with personal issues to find materials privately and be able to come and go without having to interact with staff if they choose not to.

So… when does what we do with cataloguing become more about the patron and less about the staff and traditional library practices.  Let me give you an example---I have been working at re-cataloguing our youth graphic novel collection.  If you have been following publishing trends, you know that graphic novels for youth have been exploding onto the library scene.  There are fiction books that now have a graphic novel counterpart. There are graphic novel series that are historical or biographical in nature.   There are even science comics and fairy tale graphic novels. 

While working on this project, I found that we owned several graphic novels that were biographies.  Since I also worked on the picture book city project, I naturally leaned toward putting the biographies together in a group—just like we do in the 921’s and the way that I did in the picture book collection.  But then I ran into a small roadblock.  One of our catalogers was not a fan of making our graphic novels into subject groupings.  Creating multiple headings that needed to be entered into the catalog software would require extra work on the part of the staff.  Plus this person was not comfortable with making another collection subject based.  (In retrospect, I realized that most of the cataloguing projects in the youth collection were my idea—not helpful ☺) I wanted to make browsing simpler for the patrons and this person wanted to follow traditional cataloguing rules. 

My question then is this:  when does doing what makes library browsing easier for the patrons overrule the work the staff must do to ensure the patrons have a great experience?  When is customer service more important than traditional methods of cataloguing? 

Just Wondering - Graphically Speaking

This post by Manitowoc (WI) Public Library Youth Librarian and YSS Board Member Susie Menk helps us all think about our graphic novel collections. And she's wondering....what do you think?

So my newest project at Manitowoc Public Library is working with our youth graphic novel collection.   Graphic novels have exploded onto the book scene in recent years and with Jerry Craft’s New Kid winning the Newbery Award, they are in high demand.   I have been at my library for almost ten years and in that time we have always had graphic novels shelved in their own location—not in non-fiction and not with fiction, but in its own special space. 

So what do you do with your graphic novel collection?  Do you have it under the Dewey Decimal number of 741.5973 or do you keep it with comics in the 741.5 section?  Do you shelve the books in the non-fiction section or do you keep them in their own space?  How do your patrons respond when they see the Dewey Decimal number in the catalog?  Are they confused?  Are they able to find the graphic novels on their own or do you find yourself having to walk them to the right area?

In an effort to make graphic novels easier to find for patrons and easier to browse, my library is switching up how we catalog these books.  We have chosen to catalog them under the work “graphic” and eliminate the Dewey Decimal number.  In addition to changing the call number, we are also changing the author name to the series name (when applicable) or main character name.  So Jeff Smith’s Bone series has been catalogued as GRAPHIC Bone instead of 741.5973 Smith. 

The adult and teen graphic novels have been re-cataloged already and I am starting on the youth collection.  The graphic novels will stay on the same shelving unit where they have always been, but with the new call numbers and new location of YGRAPHIC listed in the catalog, hopefully patrons will have an easier time finding the right book or their favorite book on their own.

So, how do you shelve and catalog your graphic novels?  I’d love to hear your thoughts.  How do you decide what is or isn’t a graphic novel?  Is The Bad Guys by Aaron Blabey a graphic novel or a chapter book?  How do you catalog the superhero graphic novels—by DC or Marvel or by the character like Spiderman or Batman?  There are so many things to consider when cataloging this collection.   What works for your library?

Lumberjanes, Coming to a Small Screen Near You!

Lumberjanes fans, rejoice!  HBO Max is currently in the process of developing an animated series adaptation of the series, with series co-creator Noelle Stevenson in the role of writer and executive producer!  (Stevenson will also be directing a few of the episodes!)

Here's an ARTICLE announcing the endeavor from Hypable. 

Friendship to the MAX!

The Prince and the Dressmaker Musical, Coming Your Way!

Calling all musical lovers...

Jen Wang's The Prince and the Dressmaker is going to be turned into a movie musical!

                  

You read that correctly...Kristen and Bobby Lopez, of Frozen fame, announced that their next project will be an adaptation of the popular 2018 graphic novel!

Here's a link to the Playbill article...and another featured on The Mary Sue.

No official timeline has been released for the project, but keep it on your radars!

In Defense of Graphic Novels

Undoubtedly, you or someone you work with has heard the claims that "graphic novels aren't real books" or that they "don't count as reading"...

Which, of course, is RUBBISH.

Looking for some simple, impactful talking points to bust out the next time you're faced with a graphic novel-opposed patron? 

You're in luck!  Check out THIS post from the awesome folks at 5 Minute Librarian!

Collection Development: Manga

Does your graphic novel section have manga?  If not, it might be time to invest!

According to recent information from The NPD Group, "book sales in the manga subcategory in the retail trade channel grew 16 percent from January 1, 2019 to May 11, 2019, exceeding the 5 percent growth of the total adult-comic/graphic-novel category."  The information includes major book sellers like Barnes & Noble, as well as stores like Target, and online retailers like Amazon.  It does not include specialty comic book stores.  A trend seen as leading to this spike in manga sales is the availability of Japanese anime shows and movies from online platforms including Hulu and Netflix.

Read the rest of the article HERE.

Public Libraries Online has a great post about manga: Manga: Tips for A Great Library Collection

The New York Public Library has a starter post for those who have not explored manga before: A Beginner's Guide to Manga

The Diary of a Young Girl, Now in Graphic Memoir Format!

Nonfiction graphic novel alert!

Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl has been adapted into a graphic memoir!

This quote from the Bustle article discussing the new adaption captures the magic and potential of this new format so well: "The graphic adaptation juxtaposes the text The Diary of a Young Girl with beautiful artwork by David Polonsky to show readers some of the things that Anne Frank doesn't explicitly mention but certainly existed in Amsterdam during the Nazi invasion. Through the artwork, readers are shown how daily discrimination against Jewish people played out, what the secret annex (and its occupants) looked like, and images from the warfront and concentration camps."

Anne Frank's Diary: The Graphic Adapation, which came out earlier this month, would be a fantastic addition to any library's shelves.  We all know that graphic novels have immense appeal among a variety of audiences and retelling such a powerful story in this new format will make it accessible to avid and reluctant readers alike.

ALSC Graphic Novels Reading List 2018

Have the kids read through all the graphic novels that you usually recommend? Are you looking at near-empty shelves and needing inspiration? If that situation sounds familiar, here's some assistance coming your way!

ALSC's Quicklists Consulting Committee has announced their 2018 Graphic Novel Reading Lists. Download the lists HERE.