Challenges in Managing and Maintaining Your Graphic Novel Collection

While interviewing librarians I also asked about special challenges in managing and maintaining their graphic novel collections. I received a variety of responses.

All of the librarians answered that wear and tear on the books was one of the greatest challenges they faced on a day to day basis. With a great number of titles only available in paperback, those volumes tend to wear out faster than other library bound graphic novels.

Two librarians specifically mentioned funding their collections as an additional expense. Many graphic novels are serialized, and budgets need to be built around possible standing orders for new books as they come out. A number of manga titles are parts of large collections (Fruits Basket 23 volumes, Tsubasa 24 volumes). This can make ordering tricky when dealing with library vendors, one librarian mentioned that when they tried to complete her libraries Naruto collection, she ended up being shorted volumes 4,9, and 13 because they were on back order.

A public librarian mentioned that there is a difficulty for her finding reviews of graphic novels from a lot of the traditional resources. As a result of this she turns to alternative resources to find reviews and alerts on new and upcoming series.

The same public librarian and one of the high school librarians were the only ones who mentioned being familiar with the content and making sure they put material in the appropriate part of the collection. The high school librarian I interviewed seemed to be the most familiar with her collection in order to know what she had on her shelves. Some of the other librarians admitted being unfamiliar with some of the titles and series in their own collections.

Although rationally, I know its impossible to know every title in your collection and to have read them all, I believe it is very important to know your collection. I also believe that most of the hurdles mentioned in the librarians interviews can be addressed. I've noticed that more publishers are starting to address the library market and are producing hardier versions of their books. As the genre continues to grow in popularity, I think this trend will continue. Even Tokyopop is putting out hard back multi volume collections of some of its most popular manga titles.