At the time of this assignment, I was living in Edinburgh, Scotland, which meant I got to assess a local Scottish library! As it turns out, Scottish libraries, or at least the ones in Edinburgh, are vastly different from my home library in Bloomingdale, Illinois (I absolutely love the Bloomingdale Public Library). I actually visited two other Scottish libraries before deciding to assess the third one, because frankly I was deeply disappointed in their graphic selection and their overall collection. First I visited Balgreen Library, which shared space with an elementary school and had a surprising Chinese section (Edinburgh has a large Chinese population), but practically no graphics or comics. Second I visited the National Library of Scotland, which was by far much bigger, but had a completely restricted collection. There was no browsing allowed and you couldn't check out books to take home--only in-building, title-upon-request reading was allowed. That made me very upset because I felt it violated what a library is supposed to stand for in the community, but I'll save that rant for another post. The third library I visited was the most assessable of the three, and that was called Fountainbridge Library.
Additionally, I found at least three different types of spine labels for the comics, so it looks like they were not updated regularly. If you'll take a closer look, you'll also notice there is no cataloging information on the spine. For comparison, the library I work at in Downers Grove would have a spine label that says the location of the book in the collection, the author, the series name, and the number of the book in the series. These spine labels only have the location on them, which makes me wonder how they were then further cataloged. By series? Author? Publisher? The world may never know, because looking at these three shelves, I could not find any semblance of organization. I've included closeups of the three shelves below.
It looks like the bottom shelf has a few true graphic novels as well as a few random mangas. My hope in the randomness of the mangas is that the other numbers of the series were currently checked out, because I would be really sad if the library only had those random numbers in the series.
Say I was a patron that was interested in reading Hellsing but wanted to start at volume one. If I was in Bloomingdale, I would go to the BPL website and just search Hellsing vol 1 or something along those lines and get answers instantly. The libraries in Edinburgh do not have this option. No Edinburgh libraries have their own website. If you want to search for a book online, you have to go to this city-wide Edinburgh libraries website, which is not very user-friendly in my opinion. The search bar at the top of the page is not a catalog search, so if I search Hellsing in that search, I get a list of convoluted results not related to the manga series I want.
Say I was a patron that was interested in reading Hellsing but wanted to start at volume one. If I was in Bloomingdale, I would go to the BPL website and just search Hellsing vol 1 or something along those lines and get answers instantly. The libraries in Edinburgh do not have this option. No Edinburgh libraries have their own website. If you want to search for a book online, you have to go to this city-wide Edinburgh libraries website, which is not very user-friendly in my opinion. The search bar at the top of the page is not a catalog search, so if I search Hellsing in that search, I get a list of convoluted results not related to the manga series I want.
To find the online catalog, you have to click "Using the library," then "Borrow from the library," then "Search the library catalog." Finally you reach this page, which looks a lot more simple. Now I'm able to search for Hellsing. If you're thinking, "Well why didn't you just go to the second site in the first place?" the answer is because the first site is the one listed as the official library website, despite it being a generic library website for all libraries in Edinburgh.
Now that I'm on the right website, I tried my search for Hellsing once again. The image on the left is the search result list and the image on the right is after I clicked on the item to see the details.
I had hoped that by clicking on the Hellsing from the result list it would show me the whole series, but it turns out that Vol. 5 is the only Hellsing volume in all of Edinburgh, and it is available at the Fountainbridge Library. I thought maybe there was an error, so I tried searching Attack on Titan as well. There were definitely more search results, but once again, only one library in all of Edinburgh carried Vol. 1 of Attack on Titan. The library that carried it was called Kirkliston Library, which tells me that the online catalog I was using was not specific to Fountainbridge Library but is used for all Edinburgh libraries. I think this makes it more difficult for patrons to see what their library actually has in stock, because you may get successful search results, but it could still take days or weeks to be ILLed to your home library.
On the "A-Z e-resources tab" it shows that Edinburgh libraries also offer platforms for audiobooks and ebooks, such as BorrowBox and Libby/OverDrive. I was not able to see their e-collection because I don't have a library card with the library, but I am curious to know how their Libby/OverDrive account would work. Since the catalog is across all Edinburgh libraries, I would assume that their Libby contract is also for all libraries and is not split up by individual buildings. For example, my Bloomingdale Library offers different titles than the Roselle Library on Libby because each library is responsible for its own purchasing. Sharing a Libby account could be good because it gives all libraries access to a lot of resources, but it could also be horrible for patrons if they have to fight thousands of other patrons for one title if the library didn't buy enough copies on Libby.
I want to end on a more positive note, so let's go back to looking at Fountainbridge's physical comics. Below is one of the books that was on display.
I was not familiar with this particular issue, so I went to the DC Comics: Zero Year official website to find the specs. According to the website, this issue was published in 2015 and is part of the Batman 2011 series.
The image on the right is part of the checkout history for this book. It looks like it had been checked out within the last six months or so, which is good, and this was the second sheet of checkout stamps, which means it was checked out a considerable amount before the oldest 2017 date on this sheet. Also good, because that means this copy circulates. But what about the books not on display? Do they circulate? Were they in good condition? I looked at several more. Find them below. |
You may notice that our poor Hellsing book hasn't been checked out since 2017. Maybe that's because they only have volume 5? In this case, I think it should be weeded and maybe replaced with volume 1 or a different series that would be more circulated. The other two comics had been checked out in the last year, so it looks like this section is getting used. They could also have more circulation because comics can often be read in any order and aren't dependent on you reading the earlier issues like Hellsing is.
But! We're not done. On my way out I noticed another shelf of graphics in the YA section. And by shelf...I mean shelf. Single shelf. Here it is.
But! We're not done. On my way out I noticed another shelf of graphics in the YA section. And by shelf...I mean shelf. Single shelf. Here it is.
Actually I lied. It is half a shelf, because the books on the right are actually YA nonfiction. If you look closely there actually is a bookend dividing the two sections. My question for these comics and mangas are what makes them YA? There is nothing delineating that on the spine. How are shelvers supposed to know which comics are adult and which are young adult? These comics share the same mismatched graphic novel sticker on the spine.
If you're wondering if Fountainbridge happened to have volume 1 of One Piece or Dragon Ball Z I will save you the trouble and give you the answer: No they do not. Volume 1 of One Piece is not available in any Edinburgh library, but you can get volume 1 of Dragon Ball Z from a different library. I truly do not understand the ordering practices of these libraries.
Despite the weird YA "graphics" collection, it seems they did circulate and the plastic covers seemed to be in good condition.
If you're wondering if Fountainbridge happened to have volume 1 of One Piece or Dragon Ball Z I will save you the trouble and give you the answer: No they do not. Volume 1 of One Piece is not available in any Edinburgh library, but you can get volume 1 of Dragon Ball Z from a different library. I truly do not understand the ordering practices of these libraries.
Despite the weird YA "graphics" collection, it seems they did circulate and the plastic covers seemed to be in good condition.
And here's what it looks like when there are multiple pages of the checkout insert:
All of these books seem to circulate frequently, despite there being no displays or clear signage in the YA comics section.
Overall, the collection seems to be heavy in Marvel and DC comics, posses little to no graphic novels or manga, and has a truly confounding method of organization and categorization. I don't understand how this library runs, but at least its books are being used.
Overall, the collection seems to be heavy in Marvel and DC comics, posses little to no graphic novels or manga, and has a truly confounding method of organization and categorization. I don't understand how this library runs, but at least its books are being used.