A letter to the VPL concerning their catalogue

Hi,
Over the summer your catalogue seems to have developed a fairly serious problem in regards to your collection of graphic novels. At some point it seems that many of them were, for no apparent reason, reclassified from "Comic Book" to "Book".

Let's look at some examples.

1. If I search for Scott Pilgrim I get 23 items. If I limit this to "Comic Book" (under "Book" in the "Format" sidebar), this goes down to three items, one of which is actually a DVD. (If you don't believe me go look at the Full Record description where it's described as "Scott Pilgrim vs. the world [videorecording]".)

If I instead limit it to "Book", I get 15 results, the first seven of which are actually comic books/graphic novels (the rest of which are not actually related to Scott Pilgrim).

2. If I search for X-Men I get 179 results. If I limit this to "Comic Book" I get 13 results, including 2 DVDs, 2 children's books, 1 novel, a "how to draw" book, and a non fiction book. Not very useful.

If I limit this to "Book" I get 150 results, many (most?) of which are actually comic books/graphic novels.

3. If I search for Ghost World I get 318 items. If I limit this to "Comic Book" I get 2 results, one of which is a DVD and one of which is a comic, but not Ghost World by Daniel Clowes.

If I limit to "Book" the top two results are graphic novels, though one of them seems to be unsure of whether it's Ghost World or Maggie the Mechanic.

4. If I search for Naruto I get 129 results. If I limit this to "Comic Book" I get 25 results, and most of them seem to be actually comics! Only one (that I saw) is a DVD.

If I limit to "Book" I get 53 results, dozens of which are comics.

I think this to be a serious problem because people cannot effectively use your catalogue to find graphic novels.

I do not believe that this was a problem earlier this year, and I do not know what has happened, but I hope something is done about it soon.

Thanks,
Matthew

Iowa City Public Library

 

Iowa City Public Library

123 South Linn St.

There appears to only be one branch of the Iowa City Public Library, but it's pretty nice, especially so after the ones in Chicago made me sad. It's located downtown, next to some pedestrian shopping streets, a playground, a fountain I always saw kids playing in, and some pianos just sitting out for people to use!

 

At first I was quite impressed by their graphic novel selection. That photo above (including those shelves way in the back that you can barely see) shows less than half of their collection. Awesome! And while I definitely spent some time here reading comics, I also discovered why it's important to have people that know the subject matter in charge of ordering books.

While I think that Grant Morrison's run on X-Men is something that libraries should consider having available (at least if they want a strong modern superhero collection), do they really need it in three different formats? I think the answer is "no", but the question of why a library might have it in three different formats is because it's available in _a lot_ of different formats. There are like four different formats that I can think of, which collect his run in 1, 3, 7, and 8 volume versions (and several of these come in both hard and softcover versions). If you're not super aware of what's in these it seems like it would be easy enough to order on accidentally. Plus Marvel is infamous for letting books go out of print (and maybe replacing them with a completely different edition). If you need to reorder a volume due to damage or theft, how do you figure out which edition you need? (And this was just one example.)

In non-comic book library info, the Iowa City library also let you borrow art! All of the paintings/photos/posters above could be borrowed for up to eight weeks! The only thing that would make it better is if you could actually look at the images on their catalogue.

#2 Part Deux: South Hill Branch - I Really Did Go Visit It, Right???

Being a very, very good librarian in training, I spent my birthday this year visiting not one, but two different libraries. The first was the South Hill Branch at Frasier and 45^th-ish. This branch has some quite colourful designs painted outside, but trying to grab a snapshot of them from the sidewalk was rather challenging. I simply could not seem to catch a moment when nobody was walking by, and I didn't want to catch someone in the picture without their permission to post it here. Finally a got a shot and only later noticed that the window reflection makes it look like a car advertisement.

This was a surprisingly busy branch in the middle of the day on Wednesday but seating was rather scarce. Every public computer was full and at least three inquiries about getting on computers were made while I was within earshot of the reference desk librarian. When I wandered over to the Young Adult section I disturbed three patrons seated on the floor sorting through several piles of books. There was a neon green bean bag chair in the corner there, but as it was occupied, no picture was taken. I finally managed to snag a wooden chair up against the front window for a bit, which gave me the chance to sort through my haul, since, as usual, I left with far more than I had intended to get. One item, Gil Jordan, Private Detective: Murder by High Tide, I got simply because of the design inside the cover – or more particularly because of the detail in the lower right corner of the inner cover.

Actually to be honest, I also chose it because I realized it was Franco-Belgian comic in, as I was to later learn, the ligne claire style. If you do not know what that means, think The Adventures of Tintin comics. I vaguely remembered a friend telling me once about a comic’s publisher that periodically reprints, in nice quality editions, translations of European comics otherwise impossible to find in English. I’m not certain if this is what my friend was talking about, but it certainly was a beautifully executed book - excepting that they "Americanized" the name from Gil Jourdan to Gil Jordan. Other than that, my only beef with the book was that it got caught in my book bag when trying to pull it out later and my yanking on it resulted in it flying upward and bashing me in the eyebrow.

The selection at South Hill Branch was not large. I noticed that, compared to Collingwood, it had a much smaller and less colourful children’s area though still quite a selection of children’s materials. What it had instead was a notable Tagalog collection. As it happened, I accidentally sent another hold to this branch a few days later and had to return to pick it up. It wasn't until then that I realized their holds area was smaller than at most any other branch I've visited, though the little corner was crammed full of items. Overall, though, I found this branch oddly unmemorable. It took me forever to write this post, because I simply had hardly any thought or memory of being at this branch compared to all the other ones that I have visited now.

I had made certain ahead of time that this branch had another adaptation of Jane Eyre on the shelves as a reason to visit it initially. It was the 1973 mini-series with Sorcha Cusack as Jane Eyre and Michael Jayston as Mr. Rochester. Sadly I personally found Cusack to be blank and boring as Jane Eyre and the mini-series adds an unfortunate voice over that often tells you quite exactly what is already occurring on screen or adds some odd comment on the moment that you really, really wish they would have endeavored to SHOW you (this being a visual medium and all) rather than pedantically telling you. The viewing experience for this mini-series was quite painful and to be honest, largely punctuated by me reading homework or wandering off to the kitchen mid “dramatic” scene to go find something to nibble on. Unless you are like me and have set yourself some inexplicable goal to watch every adaptation of Jane Eyre available via your local library system, I do not recommend wasting valuable life on this version.

--Anna

Statistics

So after the last post I was looking around the VPL collection for other X-Men comics. I quickly discovered a noticeable trend, and so decided to go through every volume that shows up on the site when you search for X-Men and limit the results to comic books.

There are 145 results. Now many of these aren't X-Men comics, but I'm willing to give the system the benefit of the doubt and assume that at least one of the X-Men show up in the comic somewhere.

Of those 145, six of them are not actually comics. Remember this is _after_ I've already limited my results to only give me comics.

Of the remaining 139 comics that show up, 55 are missing/trace. That's 39.6%!  And remember, those are just the ones that are tagged missing/trace on _every_ copy. Many more have only a sole copy left.

Of the remaining 84, 32 are currently in processing, checked out, being held, or in transit (which I've learnt can mean that the book is actually missing, and has been for several years, why can their system not alert someone if a book has been in transit for that long?). Leaving 52 "at any location" (including two that are only available in the reference collection), or 50 that you could theoretically walk into a library and borrow today.

How many of those do you think are actually there?

I was always aware that theft was an issue in regards to libraries, but I guess I didn't realize both the extent to which it is an issue, and the fact that stolen books aren't always replaced quickly/ever. I know that Marvel is pretty terrible at keeping books in print, but I also know that many of these books (or different editions of the same material) are available.

So I guess I've got an new question in regards to libraries that I'll have to consider: How do you deal with library theft?

#22 West Point Grey Branch

West Point Grey Branch
4480 West 10th Avenue

This library was the final branch I visited on a disappointing three library day. "Three libraries in one day?" you ask, "What are you? A crazy person?". As though the very existence of this blog hadn't convinced you of that fact already.

But before I get into why I went to three libraries in one day, some background information.

This may count as vaguely surprising (to people who have internet stalked me) based on the fact that my internet presence related to comics is decidedly "indie"/"alternative" in nature, but I'm actually a rather big fan of X-Men comics. The cartoon came on TV about a year after I originally moved to Canada, and I really loved watching it. My love extended to a series of  books aimed at kids that "novelised" older X-Men stories, and eventually to my reading the actual comics (and their spinoffs) themselves. Throughout the '90s I scoured back issue bins until I completed a full run of Excalibur, and read lots of issues of Uncanny, X-Men, Generation X, and more.

And while I haven't bought a new X-Men comic in years, I have read issues through collections borrowed from libraries. I've also read a lot of the Essential X-Men collections, huge thick black and white books that reprinted 20-30 issues of older comics. Despite the "Claremontisms" I enjoyed the stories and characters enough to keep reading. Plus part of me was always at least a little excited when I read a comic that I'd only ever seen referenced before.

So I've read ten volumes of Essential X-Men (comprising almost two hundred issues of the main series, and countless annuals and crossovers), the seven volumes of New Mutants Classic that are out (over fifty issues of that series), and at some point I want to read all those volumes of Essential X-Factor as well (if I can find them cheap somewhere...). Or rather, I've almost read ten volumes of Essential X-Men. I'm halfway through volume ten, and am up to the X-Tinction Agenda crossover (and all the crossovers happening in the later volumes are one of the reasons I want to read X-Factor, and wish there were more New Mutants collections). But, as I said before, these collections are in black and white, and I discovered that the VPL had the X-Tinction Agenda hardcover that collected all of these stories in colour. That's the one I want to read!

So I looked up where the copies were, and one day, after having lunch with some friends nearby, I went to a branch of the library to find the copy that was supposedly on the shelves. I couldn't find it. I asked a librarian if they could help me. They couldn't find it, and it's currently in the system as "trace", meaning they're trying to find it before it's listed as "missing". The librarian did let me know that there was another copy at a nearby library, so I hopped on a bus and head over there.

Of course you know where this story is going, that copy was missing as well. Now I generally think it's pretty shitty to steal books from libraries (steal from Chapters instead!), but the fact that two of the three copies of this book have been stolen from the library is both weird and super frustrating. This isn't exactly a classic of modern literature. Plus thieves have forced me to ask for a book called X-Tinction Agenda twice. Twice! That's not a book I ever want to have to admit to anyone that I'm reading (please ignore this blog post), let alone two librarians in one day. Oh well, I've got a hold on the last remaining copy, and hopefully it shows up.

Meanwhile, I headed off to this branch later in the day to...well, have something to write about for this blog. I'd gone past it on the bus loads of times as it's fairly near to UBC. It seems fine inside, but I guess I couldn't really get much enthusiasm up. I looked at the books and graphic novels and DVDs, removed a volume of The Unwritten from the kids section (shelvers, please look at what you're putting in that section, not every comic is suitable for kids), and left. Not that exciting really.

Victoria: Central Branch

Central Branch

735 Broughton Street

So I went to Victoria (on Vancouver Island) last weekend to visit some friends, play in a Magic: The Gathering tournament, go to a robot burlesque show, and, because this is what I do now apparently, check out some of the libraries there.

What I discovered at the Central Branch was both awesome and depressing. The awesome part? They're participating in Free Comic Book Day! That's this Saturday (May 4th). FCBD is one of my favourite days of the year (along with Halloween) and I look forward to it every year. Even if I don't personally like the comics, I'm excited by the many other people who will get free comics they can read.

In addition to the library giving away free comics, they're also running a comic making workshop with an artist who'll be at the library throughout the day drawing! Awesome.

One of the libraries in Halifax (where I used to live until I moved to Vancouver for school) is also doing something for Free Comic Book Day, and I'm kind of jealous of my friends who get to go.

Okay, so why is this depressing? Libraries doing things is great right? Yes, it is, but the depressing part is that a classmate and I contacted the Vancouver Public Library about doing something for FCBD and were shot down. Booooo. Or maybe I'm just depressed by the photo I took showing the weird way books in Victoria are organized.

A Christmas books section? It's May! Why do they have this?

#13 Kitsilano Branch

Kisilano Branch

2425 MacDonald Street

Despite having gone to this branch a couple of times (the original photo I had was taken at night and was incredibly terrible, thankfully I got a better one), I don't have much to say about it at all.

In fact about the only thing I really remember about this branch is that it's where I suggested to a friend that they read Joe Sacco's journalistic comic book Footnotes in Gaza.

Footnotes in Gaza was in my opinion the best comic published in 2009 and, despite it winning Sacco the Eisner award for Best Writer/Artist–Nonfiction, I feel it wasn't talked about as much as it maybe should have been. I think this is in no small part due to it being published on December 24th (and thus missing many year end "best of" lists because people didn't read it until some time in 2010). I think it's a powerful and affecting work, which raises many questions about current society and historical events in Israel and Palestine. I haven't read it in a few years though, so asked my friend to write about it instead.

Published in 2009, Joe Sacco’s Footnotes in Gaza pulls readers deep into the conflicted territory of Palestine and even more conflicted territory of its history and relationship with Israel. It’s not an easy read. It’s dense and this stuff is brutal to read about, but Joe Sacco produced an amazing piece of journalism cum comic book. The story moves between the activities of Joe Sacco, the character in his own book, researching and pulling together the broken threads of a half century old series of massacres, and Sacco’s renderings of the 1950’s events around those massacres through the eyes of people he interviewed and who claim to have been there. It works beautifully, as well as being drawn beautifully and densely. Both the place and its people are strong characters in the narrative and are expressed in detailed and powerful images, in detailed and powerful words. It took me weeks to read the whole thing and I honestly kept interspersing it with Yotsuba&! to ease the pain, but it was absolutely worth it. Yeah, it definitely has a Palestinian point of view, but neutrality is always a bluff, so read on anyway.

#8 Fraserview Branch

Fraserview Branch
1950 Argyle Drive

I pretty much only go to this library when I go and checkout the nearby Value Village. I mean, it's so far south! Anyway, I'd gone to this one a while ago and...forgot what I'd borrowed from it, or done there. So since my friend and I were checking out the nearby thrift store anyway (we failed to find anything), I proposed we go to the library as well.

So we got bubble tea (mine was a sesame seed slush with pearls) and headed down, only to discover that it was closed! Nooooooooo. This is why I don't like Mondays.


(And woah, apparently that song is about school shootings, I had no idea.)

Anyway, this turned out to be blessing in disguise as I got to take the following amazing photo of the book drop inside the library's front door.

Holy crap! That is a huge pile of books, DVDs, and other stuff. Is that really the best way to have people return things? Also, is that the normal amount of stuff that's piled up by Monday afternoon? Cause that's kind of awesome if that much stuff is being returned on days when the library is closed. Though I weep for the physical well-being of those items.

I also found something else awesome! Right outside the drop box (next to the sign asking people not to put donations through the slot or leave them outside), I found a bundle of magazines and comics someone didn't want! Most of them were old and boring, and while I debated taking at least one of the decade old video game magazines, I decided not to, and instead took the following two French language graphic novels (BD).  

Lucky Luke! The most popular French comic to never really get any amount of popularity in English speaking countries. (ie. I've never read any of it. I know some of it's available in English. And maybe it's really huge in, like, India, they published 24 volumes of it in English there in 2009.)

Sophie! I have no idea who this is, and as far as I can tell none of it has ever been translated into English. Anyway, I'm super pumped to "read" both of these. The Sophie book has a dinosaur!

#12 Kerrisdale Branch

Kerrisdale Branch
2112 West 42 Avenue

Up to this point I've been posting about branches in the order I visited them, but it's been a while since I updated this blog (stupid school), and even longer since I've actually been in some of these places, so let's move ahead to the most recent branch I've visited (don't worry, I'm still going to write about every branch).

Recently for a class project I headed to the Kerrisdale branch of the VPL to pick up a reference book (a copy of the Essential Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe, required for any reference library that needs to tell you about early '80s Marvel characters, sometimes library school is great). So I typed the address into Google Maps and got on a bus only to find out that I was nowhere near where the library actually was. I started walking and about fifteen minutes (and one confused friend that I was txting trying to help me and failing) later I found the branch.

So why was this branch so hard to find? Because Google Maps has _SIX_ different locations mapped for this branch's address.

Look at that shit! Two of those locations are 3.5 kilometres away from each other! How the hell has this site fucked up so badly? (For the record the "1" on the map is the actual correct address with the same postal code as the VPL site, but "2" is closer to where the branch actually is located.) To add to the confusion the library is in the basement of the Kerrisdale Community Centre, a building with a completely different address entirely. It's on a different street!

Anyway, after walking for a while (and 42nd Avenue literally ceasing to exist at least twice) I finally found a building with a bookdrop outside. This had to be it! I went inside, went down some steps, and finally found it! Thankfully the book I was looking for was still on the shelf. And while you may not think that there's much demand for reference material about the Marvel universe, the other Official Handbook the library has in their catalogue is missing, while the Marvel Atlas has been in transit for at least two weeks. Where is it? The assignment is finished and we never got to see a copy and now I'm just curious.

The branch itself is fine. About the only thing I remember about it is that they had a shelf of books (all advanced reader copies) that people could take home without checking out. There was a sign telling people that they could write or draw in the books, and to please bring them back. Kind of reminds me of another library school project I've worked on...

Here's the final version of the reference guide we created for the (fictional) UBC Comic Book Club. I designed the cover to look like a comic book, and then laid out the contents on comic book sized pages. It looks fucking awesome! Totally the best looking assignment I have ever passed in. While the interior is just words, I did make a pretty awesome PowerPoint presentation that was a fumetti comic for class for this assignment. I can add "taking photos for a photocomic" to the list of things I didn't think I'd be doing in library school but have ended up doing (also on the list: using a power sander, painting things, agreeing to run RPGs).

#15 Mount Pleasant Branch

Mount Pleasant Branch
1 Kingsway

This is one of the library branches that is new since last time I lived in Vancouver. I couldn't find it the first time I looked because I thought it was still in a nearby stripmall!

It's now located in the much nicer community centre place that features various fitness things (including a climbing wall), child care services, and some other stuff. But clearly the most important (ie. only thing I went to) is the library itself!

The library contains all the things you want: computers, graphic novels, presumably some books somewhere, and a library discard cart! Yes, that all important place where libraries sell books that they've either decided to stop circulating for a myriad of reasons, or things that people have donated that the library doesn't actually want.

I always look at discard carts at libraries because, despite not really wanting to own any books (I keep giving them away after I've read them), and despite being in a building that will give me books for free, I still need to see what is available. It is like some sort of disease. This time I hit pay dirt and found an incredibly awesome/bizarre book that cost me an entire 33 cents (ie. all the change I had on me at the time): The Dredd Phenomenon - Comics and Contemporary Society by John Newsinger.

Yes! A book about Judge Dredd and British politics published in the late 1990s. What library wouldn't want a copy of this? Apparently the VPL, as this was never even catalogued. Still, their loss was my gain! I have been on a Judge Dredd/2000ad kick since the movie came out last fall (or even longer?). I keep listening to both the soundtrack from the movie and the fictional soundtrack created by one of the people from Portishead, recently bought some back issues and collections from a comic book shop's going out of business sale, and keep trawling through the library's catalogue to find more. (If you're at all interested in reading about Judge Dredd you should check out this incredibly exhaustive blog that just recently came to completion.)

If you've read...well, basically any other book about comics ever, you might find The Dredd Phenomenon a bit strange. It begins by discussing Thatcherite Britain and the rise of "New Labour" for several pages before comics are even mentioned. After that it doesn't even come as a surprise that the other books the publisher have released include ones on progressive politics and alternative forms of education, and that the author is apparently a professor of Marxist history.

The book is a politicized look at the history of the UK comics scene, 2000ad and Judge Dredd in particular, other works by popular UK creators, and how they all reflect the social and political trends throughout the '80s and '90s. It has a decidedly leftist bent, and the discussion of how the comic satirizes right wing politics manages to justify my enjoyment of a character who is more or less a fascist police officer. I haven't managed to finish the whole thing yet (despite it's short length), but so far it's been pretty fascinating, even if Sláine is repeatedly misspelled.

So let this be a lesson to you, check the library discard cart, because you might just find what you didn't even know you were looking for.

#16 Oakridge Branch

Oakridge Branch
191 - 650 West 41st Avenue

Some of the branches in Vancouver can be a little hard to find if you don't already know where they are. The Oakridge Branch is located in the Oakridge Centre, a mall/shopping centre. Except, you can't actually get into it from inside the mall as the entrance is outside. And as the entrance is way around the back facing a vast tundra of parking lots it seems like some people might end up wandering around the mall wondering where this library actually is.

I missed the tour that one of the student groups in my program organized (I had class or something), but I've still managed to go to this library twice. Once I met up with some fellow students who had ventured to the horrors of the maul mall to try to buy things (the Lego store is neat!), and I went here so I could print off my ticket to the electro swing dance party I was going to that night.

This is also the library where I asked a reference question for one of my assignments! I asked the reference librarian how I could check out the ebook versions of comics I heard the library had available. The librarian didn't know, but they knew how to find out the information.

Anyway, there are ebooks of comics available here (hopefully that link works) on the VPL website, or try searching around on the BCLibraries site. You might have to click around a bit, as the comics aren't very well organized and there are a bunch of picture books mixed in with them.

Unfortunately I haven't been able to check out any of them as I'm running Linux on my computer, which is incompatible with the software needed to download the files. Boo.

#3 Central Branch

Central Branch
350 West Georgia Street

The Central Branch! The jewel in the crown of the VPL. It's huge! So many books and DVDs and comics and zines (including some by me) and everything else!

I've been to this library so many times and done lots of things at it, so I'll concentrate on one recent trip where I did something awesome: used microfilm readers! Yes! That ancient technology you've maybe seen in movies, but never actually used yourself.

I'd been doing some reading about censorship in Canada for a course, and saw a reference to an article published in 1950. I went to the central branch and they showed me where the newspapers were kept, and how to use the reader. You can even scan the old newspapers!

(From the Daily Colonist, Victoria, BC,  January 21st, 1950, p. 18.)

This led me to looking up Canada's Criminal Code and I discovered that crime comics are still illegal! Most of this section is about "obscene" material in general, but the following sections are about comics specifically (and haven't been repealed!).

163. (1) Every one commits an offence who
(b) makes, prints, publishes, distributes, sells or has in his possession for the purpose of publication, distribution or circulation a crime comic.

(7) In this section, “crime comic” means a magazine, periodical or book that exclusively or substantially comprises matter depicting pictorially
(a) the commission of crimes, real or fictitious; or
(b) events connected with the commission of crimes, real or fictitious, whether occurring before or after the commission of the crime.

So yeah, Detective Comics is still illegal in Canada. Here's a blog post that goes into some more detail about this.

All this research about comic books in Canada reminded me of a copy of a photo I'd once seen of a comic book burning in Vancouver. I looked it up online, and found copies of the photo, but not to when it was published. Instead sites had taken it from a book called Vancouver Noir (which I weirdly saw lying on a chair at a UBC library earlier today). They had a copy of the book in the Special Collections section of the library, and after filling out a request form I was able to look through it and discover what issue of which newspaper the photo had come from! I found the microfilm and was allowed to bring it downstairs to scan.

 

 (From The Vancouver Herald, December 13th, 1954, p. 1.)

"He said if parents would "sharpen up," children would soon be devoted to "classy" books and forget lower-type comics."

Crazy!

As a special bonus here are some comic strips from the issue of the Daily Colonist I scanned.

Buck Rogers by Bob Barton and Murphy Anderson

I have absolutely no idea what that interplanetary code says. I'm not sure if it's because of my inability to transcribe the morse code, or because it's double encrypted. This Buck Rogers Secret Code Book didn't help at all! (It is from a different decade though...)

Scarlet O'Neil by Russell Stamm

I have no idea what's going on in this. (Somehow this is about a superheroine who can turn invisible.)

Johnny Hazard by Frank Robbins

Will Johnny ever solve the case of the discarded garments?