I had a terrific response to the shelving Manga question. You guys are absolutely
the best! Thanks for all your great responses and tips. It is so wonderful to get
different ideas that you had never considered before! Here's what I received.
We put them in a separate section, near our fiction collection and
labeled them GFX FIC XYZ (with XYZ being the 1st three letters of the
author's last name. We still have comic books (Garfield, Doonesbury,
etc. in the 741 section).
We used GFX as a stand in for "graphic novels."
We have had Manga for 2 1/2 years now so we have quite a collection! And they are
SO POPULAR that we have them on a shelf by themselves [under the globe.] Ours have
741 on the spine label, too. As a matter of fact, many of them don't ever get back
on the shelf because the students check them out before we can re-shelve them. So
we have a small book truck near the circulation desk that we put the Manga returns
on and just don't even bother to reshelve them at this point. It's a remarkable
phenomenon that's occurred and good PR for the library, I believe.
I made a new section called Graphic Novels, and the prefix is GN. I have an area
that has our small everybody collection (I am a jh so don't have many,) our books
in Spanish, and our story collection. I have a couple of shelves in that area
marked GN.
Most of mine are 741.5 which is also where Calvin and Hobbes, Garfield,
etc. are located.
You are right about popularity. And for me it is often students that
don't read anything else or special needs kids.
I'm pretty involved in the comic/graphic novel community and the way you
want to do it (also the way I do it) is their preference. They do not
appreciate the idea of their work being isolated from "real" literature and
cataloged in a way that is totally different than media of any other type.
(Of course if it is a factual historical manga or something of that nature,
it goes under its normal Dewey number.) I don't know why the DDC people
continue with this type of odd cataloging that does not follow suit with
virtually any other type of item.
I believe this goes hand in hand along with the recent discussion of
shelving by AR number. It's not not true solid librarianship. Cataloging
things by the number of the media they appear in, or the format of their
content, is just as short-sighted and un-library-like in my mind. We don't
assign all videos the Dewey number for video technology, for example. We
catalog the content, not the style. We may assign them a prefix and store
them separately, because they are difficult to shelve with books, but this
is not the issue with graphic novels.
I wrote to Follett about this issue last year, as a matter of fact.
We have 'em in 741.5 (Hardcover)and shelved separately in paperbacks. I
think the best way to shelve them is to break them out completely, since
they're a pretty unique beast. On my wish list is a piece of stand alone
shelving large enough to house all my graphic novels/manga. Then, I
could have them all in one discrete collection.
I shelve mine in the "series" section.
Ours are among the fiction books by author.
I have a new category with the call number Comic. They are shelved close to the
magazines for check-out. Brenda
I created a new section for graphic fiction. My spine labels all say GRA FIC. The
kids who read these know what they're looking for. They like having all the
graphic novels together in one separate section.
Since Manga is art art style, 741 would be appropriate for the How to
draw Manga books. Where the book is simply a fiction story with
Manga-style drawings, I'd put it in FIC, as you suggest. I think Follett
may just be putting all of them in 741 based on the drawing style, so
when your books and data disk arrive you may need to change a few
things. Guess that's why we import the records into an entry collection
first.
I've gotten a few Manga books, and discovered that they weren't very
well made. Several of them fell apart with a year or two, and a couple
were just plain stolen. Anyway, I haven't purchased any more for a
couple of years, and I probably ought to get some this year. Perhaps you
could post a list of titles and ISBNs of some of the better books (those
that kids can actually read more than twice before the book is ready for
the trashcan).
The little we have is shelved with 741.5. However, we have an area right near our
front entrance where we pull the entire 741.5 section and display these books for
most of the year. We put a sign in the regular shelving area that directs patrons
to check the display area in case they missed it coming in. Students seem to like
this set-up in our particular situation. Like you indicated, the books seem "lost"
otherwise. We do put them back in proper shelving order for inventory purposes.
Unless they are true nonfiction, I put all my graphic novels in a special
section at the end of Fiction. They get aspecial Spine sticker so they
stand out and don't get shelved with regular fiction.
Before I began work in a branch of my public library, the graphic novels were
intershelved by call number among the adult non-fiction. A few of the kids knew
where they were and would get them for the other kids. To keep them in order, they
were way above the reach of the majority of the kids that wanted to read them. As
a result, the area was either in a constant state of dishevelment, with books
falling over and all over the floor, or the books weren't used at all because the
kids were chased away from the adult section.
As the YA librarian, I was distressed that something so important to the kids was
so isolated. I wanted the graphic novels in my YA section, and my manager agreed,
but we had no available shelf space. I looked around in the basement and found an
old wooden magazine display stand slated to be tossed out. I cleaned it up, put it
in the YA section, and arranged the tall graphic novels in it. I didn't bother
trying to keep them in any sort of order -- I just made sure they could be seen.
When we got more than could be easily displayed, I made sure the ones that were
less popular had plenty of face time before getting rid of them.
The graphic novel section was about the most popular thing in the library. The
kids had easy access to their favorite books, we both had a great central place to
put them, and I didn't have to worry about keeping them in order. Eventually, I
added other tall cartoon books (like Garfield), how movies are made books, and
how-to-draw-manga books to this display. The kids ate them up! Loved the "new"
books! I added a couple of the how-to-draw-"regular-things" books, but they didn't
take to those as well as the drawing manga books.
The smaller ones, generally in series like DragonBall Z or Peach Girls, I put in
a double-sided, two-shelf stand. I did my best to keep these in some sort of
order. It wasn't difficult -- alphabetical by series title, then by number. The
kids were able to help keep them in order, too. This was placed next to the other
display, so all my graphic novels were together, easily accessible by the kids,
and, again, it wasn't a nightmare for me to keep in any sort of order. We told our
page how it was done so he would automatically pull out any graphic novels and put
them in my section (I voluntarily did all YA shelving so I could maintain
circulation stats) and not put them on the shelf by their call number.
Having designated stands like this helped keep the graphic novels out and on
display, giving the kids easy access. It helped the kids browse and see the new
titles because they'd have to move books around to find what they were looking for.
And it helped me keep the collection under control. I could easily tell when it
was time to get rid of things because the collection outgrew the shelving we
allotted to it. Of course, since it was so extremely popular with the kids, and we
didn't have to support a curriculum, I was able to expand the shelving a bit. And
some of the more popular ones I did tape together several times before finally
getting rid of them, but overall, we kept it down to that little bit of shelving
that had been slated to be destroyed.
I have just a few for 9-12 HS which I place on a display case that is
close to the clerk's desk so that they have a place of prominance & for
security
Our collection is still fairly small. We have them on a wire display rack
near our circulation desk. We get a lot of traffic in that area and many of
our study hall students like to read them when they are in the library.
Sometimes they'll even actually check them out ;)
I put a special label on them and in a special section (GRN for graphic
novels)
We had a situation much like this a year ago, and we didn't want them
mixed in with Fiction for then they would be separated by author, etc.
And manga/comics/graphic novels can all have the same story line and yet
have several different authors! We also didn't want them in our
non-fiction, for we have a k-8 school and didn't want them next to the K
age appropriate books so easy to find.
So! We made up a new category, GN for graphic novel. All books under
this designation have a label showing GN and the first 2 letters of
author last name. Since they are all together as GN, finding them with
same story line but different author name is not as difficult as it may
seem!
Vicki, we pull our Manga and other graphic novels out of the general collection
more so we can have them all in one spot for ease in finding (a la the AR
controversy) AND for us putting them away easier. They are very popular and we
find them all over the library. It is easier to collect them all and put them back
in the spinners we bought just for them. At the beginning of the year they are all
organized by series, type or author -- but that quickly disappears and they are
just placed on the spinners. We try to maintain one spinner as Manga and the other
as non-Manga. Periodically we go through the spinners and reorganize -- which
gives us an opportunity to see what might have walked, what's been out way too
long, what needs repair, or anything else to keep the collection alive.
The second reason is probably a better justification. Our spinners of graphic
novels are located very close to the circulation desk. This allows us to keep a
closer eye on them and (hopefully) prevent some from disappearing. Since we still
lose 15-20 a year we are not willing to intermingle them and have an even harder
time accounting for them.
Thus, we catalog them under GRA for graphic novels. Our true comics (Garfield and
Dilbert) are in the 741's -- NOT novels. As we maintain our paperbacks separate
from the hardbound fiction books, it is probably easier to "justify" another
location for another type of book.
In reality, it is easier to be able to show students
the almost empty shelf where these books are supposed
to be than to have students tearing up the shelves
looking for them in among other titles. Consequently,
beign a practical person and having an assistant only
2 days a week, I add GN Above whatever cataloging
comes on the titles. The circulation is tremendous
and so this arrangement makes life much easier for
patrons and staff.
I prefer to house them near the front desk in a highly visible spot
since they are "high theft" items and will vanish quickly. Ideally I
would keep them on a cart by the front desk and roll it into an office
or back room the end of the day so it is less accessible to thieves when
you are not there.
Vicki Nelson
Librarian
Odessa High School
Ector County ISD
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