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This article was downloaded by: [Universidad Autonoma de Barcelona]On: 14 November 2011, At: 04:10Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Journal of Graphic Novels and ComicsPublication details, including instructions for authors andsubscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcom20

Graphic novels and comics in librariesand archives. Essays on readers,research, history and cataloging, editedby Robert G. WeinerMel Gibson a

a University of Northumbria

Available online: 15 Dec 2010

To cite this article: Mel Gibson (2010): Graphic novels and comics in libraries and archives. Essayson readers, research, history and cataloging, edited by Robert G. Weiner, Journ al of Graphic Novelsand Comics, 1:2, 217-218

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21504857.2010.526367

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Journal of Graphic Novels and ComicsVol. 1, No. 2, December 2010, 217–231

BOOK REVIEWS

Graphic novels and comics in libraries and archives. Essays on readers, research, his-tory and cataloging, edited by Robert G. Weiner, Jefferson, North Carolina, McFarland and Company, 2010, 276 pp., US$45.00 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-7864-4302-4.

Robert G. Weiner’s collection is predominantly focused on the ways that NorthAmerican librarians and archivists, with examples predominantly from the US, engagewith sequential art as practitioners, sharing examples of successful practice. It also offers asmall number of pieces that do not share that focus and a wealth of ‘leads’ into other printmaterial and websites on collection development.

The essays are grouped in sections which reveal the diversity of responses to themedium in North America and the collection does a good job of gathering together a seriesof themed ‘snapshots’ of a range of settings and issues. It may best be thought of as morelike a series of conference panels, where speakers come from very different disciplines and ranges of experience, than a more traditional collection of essays. The 29 essays included are divided into 10 sections: history, school libraries, public libraries, academic libraries,state libraries / archives, audiences, nomenclature and aesthetics, meta-comics / webcomics,cataloguing and evaluation of collections.

The diversity of the collection means that it is uneven in terms of address, althoughmost of the authors offer their practice as case studies, effectively linking the pieces. The

exceptions to this are the pieces in the history and nomenclature and aesthetics sections.To return to the notion of address, some of the essays are written with a professionalaudience in mind who may not be familiar with graphic novel collections. Essays takingthis approach tend to offer a ‘how to’, or a campaigning ‘take’, in encouraging other pro-fessionals to engage with the medium, sometimes on behalf of a specic client group or audience, such as young adults, for instance.

In contrast, others address an implied reader who is familiar with the medium and the issues for library staff. Here the exploration of a specic issue is often the focus, asis the case, for example, in comparative accounts of university library holdings. Theseessays often share quantitative and qualitative research material that could usefully supportattempts to develop collections.

Still other essays address a specic professional sub-group. The pieces on cataloguing,for instance, show a rigorousness and level of engagement that not all British library ser-vices may be able to use as a model, due to so much of that area having become part of the work of library suppliers, but do show a range of solutions to the problems that suchmaterial may offer that are appropriate, depending on the kind of service being offered.

A nal group of essays offer a more academic, research or philosophical ‘take’, some-thing particularly in evidence in Amy Kiste Nyberg’s analysis of librarians’ writings aboutgraphic novels and the changing perspectives they reveal. This diversity could be seen as astrength, or a weakness, but certainly suggests the potential of the text.

This is a very useful collection, which, it is suggested by the editor, should be dipped into rather than read through. In reviewing the book, of course, I have followed the latter

ISSN 2150-4857 print/ISSN 2150-4865 onlineDOI: 10.1080/21504857.2010.526367http://www.informaworld.com

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218 Book Reviews

approach, which reveals a number of common strands across the pieces. Whilst this resultsin repetition, which can be a problem, the slight variations give some insights as to wherean individual practitioner or service might be in terms of understanding the medium. Therewere a few generalizations, for instance, about manga, which may have reected the waysthat some authors were not particularly familiar with that national set of schools, or, per-haps, had only familiarity with mainstream titles for teen readers. In contrast, in the historysection, there was a lovely piece specically on the history of manga in Japanese librariesthat looked at shifting cultural perceptions that had taken place in terms of library policythere.

Interestingly, this repetition also ags up the continuing signicance of particular debates across the professional sectors involved. These are predominantly about questionsof denition and a large number of the pieces focus on these, in addition to the sectiondevoted to nomenclature. Other key foci were the problematic historical perspectives onthe medium that staff nd themselves having to address in relation to colleagues, patronsand funding bodies (a common theme with British writing in this area as well) and issuesabout perceptions of the audience and so what kind of collection to develop (with a shiftin the essays from seeing the medium as addressing young adults to one which sees it asdominated by adult readers). Another major focus was shelving and cataloguing, again,also a dominant discourse in British libraries. Questions the pieces address include how todisplay sequential art, where to display it, how to catalogue serials, ction and non-ctionexamples and the use of Dewey or other systems.

As a literacy worker and author in this eld, I can conrm that there are enough pointsof contact between the North American and British experiences for the book to denitely be useful to public, school and other practitioners in the UK. Those with an awareness of library policy and practice elsewhere in the world may have a similar reaction to this text,

although I suspect that there are many places where these issues have been more thoroughlyaddressed.I am sure that many of the ideas, approaches and data in the book will be useful,

although few of the articles offered me new insights, given my longstanding commitment tothis area. Reading the book also brought home to me that Keith Barker’s Graphic Account , published by the Youth Libraries Group in 1993, which mostly focused on building col-lections for 16–25 year olds may have been the British equivalent of Stephen Weiner’ssimilarly early and positive interventions in librarians’ understanding of the medium.

To summarize, elements of the book may well prove useful to librarians and archivists(as well as academic staff and others) who are trying to support the development of collec-tions in their settings, for whatever reason. Their arguments could be supported throughdrawing on some of the quantitative and qualitative data offered through some of theexamples. Similarly, elements may be drawn on in relation to stock layout and promotion.The book also suggests some interesting possible directions for research across a range of disciplines.

ReferenceBarker, K., 1993. Graphic account . Newcastle-under-Lyme: Youth Libraries Group.

Mel GibsonUniversity of Northumbria

Mel.gibson@northumbria.ac.uk © 2010, Mel Gibson

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