Collection Development for Absolute Beginners

Have you ever wondered where your library gets all of its books? They must magically spawn there on the shelf, right? 

I hate to be the one to break it to you but there are no Book Elves that magically summon all the library books. 

Or, rather, there are people who summon the books, but it's a lot less magic and a lot more reading reviews and putting in order requests. These people are selectors and are responsible for collection development for their sections. Recently, I was made selector for my library's adult manga collection. 

Before I officially became a selector, I had already been helping one of our other selectors with a project. My coworker, I'll call them A-chan, is the selector for the Teen graphic and manga collection, and they asked for my opinion on the manga in the Adult collection and if I thought there was any that could be moved from Adult to Teen. Since they didn't have the time to look through the collection, I checked out several piles of manga and read through them over a break. In total, we moved 26 series from the Adult collection to Teen, having found that they'd be appropriate and interesting for younger readers. And we were right-- as soon as we put Mob Psycho 100, a comedy series, on the Teen shelf, a patron checked out every volume we had.

Soon after this, my manager, who at the time selected both adult manga and graphic novels, asked if I'd like to take over selecting adult manga. I've been a manga enthusiast for years, so this prospect excited me. December of 2023 was my first month of picking manga and I've been keeping my eye out for books that would be good to add to the collection.

So-- what's the process of selecting material for the library? 

 

Trade magazines like Booklist have reviews for general 
materials-- most of what you see at the library has
probably been reviewed in publications like this.

First, it's finding it. For more general books, like nonfiction, fiction, and children's material, reviews can be found in publications like Booklist (https://www.ala.org/aboutala/offices/publishing/booklist) and Kirkus Reviews (https://www.kirkusreviews.com/). For more specialized material, like manga, I have to look for specialized reviews. Sites like myanimelist.net and anilist.co are great for up to-the-minute reviews from readers and for tracking new and upcoming releases. Professional reviews can be found online on MyAnimeList and Anime News Network (https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/) and in print in the one remaining anime and manga magazine in America, Otaku USA (https://otakuusamagazine.com/). Knowing what to select is easier if you're familiar with the area already -- I was already into manga before becoming a selector, so I had a place to start. This is all to say if you're a library selector, make sure you familiarize yourself with your area, even if it's not within your personal interests. It makes it a lot easier to know what people are going to want to read if you're not blindfolding yourself and throwing darts for next month's selection.

Reading Otaku USA Magazine

Before I started getting new books, I had to find out what we had in the collection already. To do this I made a spreadsheet of all books in the catalogue. The list then was expanded to include the total number of circulations and the number of circulations in 2023. This helped me gauge how popular individual volumes are, which suggests to me which series should be continued and what should even be weeded. 

Click to enlarge

I found that among our most popular series were Kakegurui: Compulsive Gambler, Spy x Family, Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku, and Chainsaw Man. This gives me an idea not only of what to continue selecting in the future (in fact, the first book I selected was a replacement for a missing volume of Chainsaw Man), but what genres and themes are most interesting to our patrons. Drama, action, and romance top the list, followed by a nonfiction memoir, slice of life, and horror. 

This list also helped me weed material that hadn't been checked out for too long-- one series totaled over 20 volumes but had barely been checked out, with most volumes never even circulating once, so it was weeded, making room on our sadly very small bookcase. I only have so much room and I have to keep adding new books to the collection, so some things have to go. This is all part of collection development-- deciding what should and shouldn't be in your area of the collection. Sometimes you have to kill your darlings like that. Weeded books get put in the Friends of the Library book sale-- so make sure you check the sales, that book you love might someday be there waiting for you.

Now that I've found what I have and what I no longer need, I'm free to start selecting what I should add. Our library orders most of our books through the distributor Baker & Taylor (https://www.baker-taylor.com/) and this is the exciting part-- getting ready to order my books.

A book page on Baker & Taylor

Here I can search for books and add them to my cart. Carts are then transferred to the librarian who handles the actual purchase-- all I have to do is choose what I want and send them on to the purchaser. This system may differ between libraries. When the books arrive at the library from the distributor, I decide what the spine label should be and pass them on to the cataloger, who then passes them on to processing to get them ready for going on the shelf.

More about manga

When I told one of my friends, best known to this blog as my Research Assistant N, about this job, I was asked a good question. "What does 'adult' manga entail?"

Manga is published according to demographic: shounen and shoujo for teen/young adult boys and girls, and seinen and josei for adult men and women. Some shounen and shoujo are aimed at an older teen/young adult audience that puts them into my territory rather than the Teen selector's. In English, the term "adult" manga suggests "adult" themes of violence and sexuality, which, just like in Western graphic novels, do exist in manga. However, manga is a very popular form of media in Japan with hundreds of topics, so there's something for everyone. Many seinen and josei manga deal with adult life-- jobs, family, and things adults experience that wouldn't appeal to younger readers. Very few kids want to read about working in an office. Likewise, shounen and shoujo focus on topics younger readers relate to-- school and coming of age stories are common, even in fantastical settings. 

Since my area is for adults, I focus primarily on seinen and josei manga and some shounen and shoujo aimed at an older, young/new adult audience. As I mentioned above when talking about my analysis of material already in the collection, I found that action and drama are our most popular genres. This information tells me what to pay attention to-- otherwise we would all just order whatever interests us personally. There's an old saying in broadcasting that "many a station has gone bankrupt playing the owner's favorite music." The same goes for choosing books. 

Sometimes a series I find would work better for the Teen collection-- that was the issue earlier last year when my coworker and I started going through the Adult collection and finding series that fit better for younger readers. Sometimes it's the opposite, recently I was given a book my coworker had initially intended for Teen only to realize it fit better in the adult collection. 

That's about all I have about selecting for now, though I can go more in depth in the future if anyone is interested. Next time, I'm going to write a review of a manga that's absolutely captured my heart, Frau Faust by Kore Yamazaki, and later I will be reporting on my experiences cataloging every cemetery in my home county.

Until then, happy reading!

This Year at the Library (Or, Where I've Been, Part 2)

 I initially intended to write a post about things happening at the library every month. My last posts were in 2022, over a year ago, so you can tell how well that plan worked out. My job at said library has kept me busy for the past year, and I do have some updates about my various projects.

First, my main project since Fall 2022 has been making an index of cemeteries in the county. This project, when completed, will have a physical book for library patrons to reference, as well as a website, and will contain information about every cemetery and known burial site in the county. The website is about 75% finished and I'll make a full post announcing the launch of the project as soon as it's ready to be viewed by the public. 

Second, late in 2023 I was given the position of selector for manga for the adult collection. This is a perfect fit for me considering I've been a manga and anime enthusiast-- dare I say it, even, an otaku-- for years. This has introduced me to the realm of collection development, which is both intimidating and exciting. I'll also have a full post describing this experience soon.

Until then, take care of yourself.

This Month at the Library: July's Staff Picks

The last year has been incredibly busy for me, since I've been working at the local library in a number of positions. I haven't had much time to sit down and write the kind of long articles I would like to (and after that insanely long review of The Green Knight you're probably thankful. But don't get comfortable, I fully intend to subject you to a deep dive into Jurassic Park and the writing of Michael Crichton in the future). This month also experienced the bane of every librarian's existence: bad eyesight, which significantly cut down on my reading and writing. However, I have new glasses and what's more, July was my birthday month (was, since I'm finishing this up in August).

At our library, every month there is a staff birthday, the said birthday staffers get to take over one of the displays with their recommendations. I thought it'd be fun to discuss my recommendations and my reasoning behind them-- what appealed to me about them and what may appeal to you. As explained by NoveList, a book database from EBSCO, "Appeal is a way of determining why people enjoy the books they read."[1] So, why did I enjoy these books, and why might you enjoy them? This list is in no particular order, and I was obviously limited to only books at our library, so consider this a list of what I might recommend if you were to stop me at work and ask me for a random suggestion.

Note: while we were allowed a potential 10 items, only a few would be chosen by the person in charge of the display due to space available. I've included the books that got on the shelves. I was also informed that I could not, in fact, display the CPR dummy from the Library of Things as one of my staff recommendations, so consider this my endorsement of our vinyl and polyurethane friends dedicated to CPR education.

The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin, Jr.

This book is, most simply put, an animal fable starring a rooster and his barnyard fighting against evil. At the beginning of creation, God sealed an evil creature called the Wyrm underground, but now it's out and it's up to Chaunticleer and the other animals to defeat this literal hell breaking loose. The main character, Chaunticleer, as well as his wife Pertelot, and the fox Lord Russell, all come from Chaucer's "Nun's Priest's Tale," and the book draws inspiration from John Milton's epic Paradise Lost, Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, and the Bible. The title refers to the Dun Cow, a legendary creature from English folklore, as well as sharing its name with a real (though unrelated) medieval Irish manuscript, Lebor na hUidre. Wangerin weaves a unique cosmology and musings on the nature of God, good, evil, and leadership into what at first seems like a standard Redwall or Watership Down -style animal novel. While it is based in part on Christian scripture and tradition, it doesn't beat the reader over their head and it can be enjoyed regardless of religious interest.

I recommend it to readers who: like allegory, comparative literature, Early Modern poetry, and warrior chickens. Must be in the mood for a story more intense than Narnia since it gets dark. Also be ready to take notes. 

Vampire Hunter D by Hideyuki Kikuchi

The source for the 1985 OVA Vampire Hunter D, which has become a cult classic of both anime and horror in general, is the long-running novel series of the same name. The series is a mixture of horror, science fiction, and western-- taking place in the far future of our world, after the rise and fall of our vampire overlords. The eponymous D is a mysterious, miraculously powerful and handsome dhampir (half vampire, half human) who occasionally lends his vampire hunting services to the people of the Frontier. The worldbuilding is endlessly fascinating and expanded upon throughout the series-- and has plenty of Easter eggs for fans of horror, like "Summers Montague" and "T. Fisher" being authors of books on vampires (based on the real-life folklorist and apparent vampire believer Montague Summers, and Terence Fisher, the Hammer Horror film director). D himself is a great protagonist -- stoic, steadfast, and equipped with a deadly blade and a wise-cracking second face in his left hand. He's a gunslinger (or swordslinger?) who hunts monsters rather than outlaws.

I recommend it to readers who: enjoy vampire media like Dracula, Hellsing, and Castlevania, like sci-fi elements and futuristic westerns. Liking cool, stoic male protagonists is a plus. Must be looking for a fast-paced ride through the weird and the wonderful.

How to Bake an American Pie by Karma Wilson

It certainly has been... a few years here in my home country of the United States. While I won't discuss politics or current events, suffice it to say it can sometimes take some work to remember the things we're promised about America when we're young -- liberty, equality, unity. Wilson's picture book is a rhyming set of instructions for the baking process, guided by an adorable dog and cat team. Raúl Colón's soft, colored pencil-style artwork perfectly accompanies the text, with such ingredients as a "crust of fruited plains" and "spacious skies" (like in the song "America the Beautiful," get it?), as well as more intangible things like meekness and might. Perhaps we should review this recipe and adjust our baking as needed.

I recommend it to readers who: like baking, American history, and children's books, especially those with intricate rhymes and complex ideas. It will probably appeal to you if you have a likewise complex view of patriotism, or would just like to see a cat and dog baking.

Midnight In The Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

Midnight In the Garden is a nonfiction-novel that not only is a cult classic for fans of true crime and Southern Gothic, it's been so influential in Savannah, Georgia, that it's known simply as The Book. The setup is simple: Berendt travels to Savannah to write a magazine feature on the work of historical preservationist Jim Williams – who, partway through the book, is accused of murder. This introduces the outsider narrator, and the audience, to the world of Southern Gothic – the houses are old, the characters are eccentric, everyone has secrets, Spanish moss hangs from the trees, and there’s hoodoo to be done. Savannah is portrayed vividly, so much that the Book is often attributed with more than doubling tourism to the city[2]. It’s the perfect mix of literary true crime and American regionalism and is a quick read (I read it in one sitting) that never the less will leave an impression.

I recommend it to readers who: like true crime that centers on one event, Southern Gothic and Southern Regional literature, and stories with unusual characters where the narrator is the straight man. Also recommended as a relatively short book that won't take too long to read.

Japanese Ghost Stories by Lafcadio Hearn

Finally, we return to horror and myth with an anthology of Lafcadio Hearn's work on the kaidan, or strange stories. Hearn was an unusual character -- born on a Greek island, raised in Ireland, and spending time in the French East Indies and United States as a journalist before finally settling in Japan, he had a deep interest in folklore and ghost stories. This collection is a crash-course in the best of Japanese weird tales, including Hoichi the Earless; yuki-onna, the snow woman; and Botan-Doro, the Peony Lantern. These will be familiar to readers interested in Japanese culture, especially Hoichi the Earless, which is the basis for the 1965 film Kwaidan. Hearn's strengths lie in his eye for detail and his interest in the very nature of fear-- he takes a whole chapter to reflect on his own childhood experiences of the sensation. However, there is no explanation for why the cover of this book appears to have a decapitated Bobby Hill.

I recommend it to readers who: enjoy folklore, Japanese culture, and good old-fashioned ghost stories. The chapters can be read on their own, so it's good for when you just want a quick read.

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[1] “Appeal Terms,” EBSCO Help, accessed July 30, 2022, http://support.ebsco.com/help/?int=novp&ver=live&lang=en&feature_id=Appeal.

[2] W.C Wertz, “20 Years After Midnight: A Look Back,” South Magazine, October 7, 2017, https://www.southmag.com/20-years-after-midnight-a-look-back/.