Collection Reflection

I covered some of this ground in Getting Started with Graphic Novels , but I wanted to revisit the topic for a more in-depth look at how I choose what adult graphic novels to purchase. As I mentioned, I use a variety of review sources and websites, including: Library Journal , Booklist , Publishers Weekly The A.V. Club, Graphic Novel Reporter, Paste, NPR, i09, Diamond Eisner nominees and other lists curated by organizations like YALSA New York Times  bestseller lists (and occasionally reviews from NYT or LA Times ) Since I only order graphic novels one or two times a year, I needed a method to keep track of the items that are reviewed or listed over the course of the year. To do this--surprising to no one, I'm sure--I use a spreadsheet. When I encounter a potential purchase, I record the publication year, author, and title, as well as the review source.  The Spreadsheet Approach in Action On the far left, I assign stars based on how much weight I'm giving a ce...

I'm in charge of ordering the adult graphic novels for my location and some of our eight branches. I took on this part of the collection several years ago, as well as responsibility for ordering nonfiction that falls in the 741.5 call number, which is where our catalogers put all the books on how to draw manga, comics, and graphic novels, as well as things like Peanuts and  Calvin and Hobbes . I "only" have $750 to spend a year at this location (and $100 per branch), so I only place orders twice a year. Your mileage may vary--I realize this is a bigger budget than many libraries probably have. Because we also have a young adult graphic novel collection and a separate collection down in the children's department, I can focus on titles that will be of primary interest to adults. The YA librarian orders many of the most popular superhero titles-- Batman , the infinite varieties of  X-Men , and so on--leaving me blissfully free of that budget drain. What if I'm S...

Following my own advice from yesterday's  post on collection maintenance , I checked in and organized all the young adult graphic novels (with the blessing of the YA librarian). Leaving aside the manga for another day, I estimate that we have over 400 YA graphic novels (on the shelf). Upon checking them in, I found: 19 items marked "missing" 3 items marked "lost" 4 items with holds 2 items with notes/cataloging problems 2 graphic novels from the adult collection 1 YA paperback 1 item marked "display" I also pulled out several items to potentially move to another part of the library (e.g., a Garfield collection that could go live with the other Garfield collections). The process took less than three hours, for which I was also on desk. Right after I finish these tasks, I always have a strong urge to hover protectively near the section and put things away as soon as people use them, but I also know (in my rational moments) that a messy colle...

So, you've ordered the books, and they're on the shelves! And you weed them occasionally. Maybe you even weed them on a set schedule, instead of when the shelves are overflowing and the pages start pleading with you to do something about them! Aside from weeding, here are some steps I recommend doing as frequently as possible to make sure that your collection looks presentable and is represented accurately in the catalog. As always, I recommend approaching your collection in manageable chunks, which for this exercise should be 1,000 items or less. If you're low on time, run a list of the items in one part of the collection that have "trouble" or out of the ordinary statuses: missing lost or lost and paid billed claims returned in process repair in transit Go through (or send a minion, if you are lucky enough to have minions) and look for these trouble items. You'd be surprised how many of these items are actually sitting on the shelf where they...