The graphic novel collection for adults and young adults is all combined together. The librarian I spoke to said they refer to it as their adult graphic novels, but many of its titles are geared toward teens. Above is an image of the 26 shelves that feature the graphic novels/comics currently available. This does not include the manga/manwha which is located on the other side of these shelves and takes up even more space.

The location for the graphic novels is not in a prominent place in the library. It's on the floor for adult and YA literature, but it is all the way in the back righthand corner. The one benefit of its placement is that it's directly next to the Teen Room, a separate room that only has YA titles. In fact, the person who does most of the organizing of the graphics is the Teen Librarian.

In taking a closer examination of the 26 shelves, there are approximately 1,250 titles. A breakdown of those titles is in the above chart.

Fiction graphics are labeled under FIC and are then categorized by either the author's last name or series name. If the series is expansive and/or has multiple different authors, it is found under the series name. If the author has a small number of titles that act as individual stories, those will be found under author names.

Nonfiction graphics are arranged by call number, and the call numbers all vary and are not simply 741.5. Biographies are labeled under B. While the nonfiction and biography section is quite small compared to the large body of fiction, there were some discrepancies.

A view of the two shelves of nonfiction. All included different call numbers specific to their topic.

A view of the biography graphic novels. It seemed very small to me considering how many great titles we read for class.

The library has two shelves for new arrivals. In the picture above, it is easy to see that most of these new arrivals are manga/manwha. However, it also includes superhero titles like Teen Titans Academy and independent titles like Tin Man by Justin Madson (April 2022). Each new title is labeled with its appropriate shelving category and has a colorful dot on its spine to signify that it is new.

The collection also includes beloved titles from the past such as Watchmen, Sandman, Maus, and many superhero titles.

The library shows its diversity of representation through some of the signage on the shelves around the graphic novels. They show American minority representation and voices with titles like Hot Comb, American Born Chinese, and I Was Their American Dream. They include immigration stories (The Best We Could Do), indigenous voices (This Place), historical acts based on xenophobia (They Called Us Enemy), and stories from queer authors (Fun Home).

A couple of things helped show which titles in the collection were most popular and sought out. The first were these markers/flags (pictured above) that stuck out of the book shelves which gives a patron a quick way to spot the titles that are more commonly checked out. When looking at the tops of the books, I saw that these titles had pages that looked more frayed and discolored than others.

When looking at the online catalog, there is a section entitled, "Most Circ'd Titles". While looking at the list, I noted that out of all the book titles listed, 71% of the titles were graphic novels/comics. Most popular were titles of many manga and manwha stories. Other popular titles included The Walking Dead, Dog Man, The Babysitters Club, Heartstopper, Babymouse, and Phoebe and Her Unicorn. This seems to suggest that many (maybe a majority of, even?) people are coming to the library to get their hands on these books.

In the library itself, 28 markers/flags were used to identify popular series. Again, this does not include manga/manwha; however, it is important to note that they did use these markers/flags on that side as well.

The flagged series are broken down in the chart above. It seems that the most popular series are superheroes, along with fantastical/sci-fi series and a little bit of horror.

Again, these series are the ones flagged because they have a collection and are popular. While patrons who love these titles will be glad to see them so readily available, I wish there was a better way to highlight some of the other awesome graphics in the collection. It would be nice to more easily find things like graphic memoirs or literary adaptations for readers whose first inclination isn't for superhero or fantastical stories but stories that are more realistic, historical, or informational.