Meet Ryan Le Clair, a.k.a Oz, who was a Student Library Assistant at the FIMS Graduate Library during Fall and Winter 2024.
While working at the library, Oz focused on collections development and unique programming related to our graphic novels collection. They assessed and made purchase suggestions for the collection and presented a readers’ advisory session based on their project work – ‘Learning & Leisure: Discover the Grad Library’s Graphic Novel Collection’.
How did you decide which graphic novels to acquire for the library’s collection?
The bulk of this project was dedicated to understanding the collection as it already was. I went through the catalog and pulled out any comics or graphic novels I could find, as well as any books that were about comics, or theory/concepts related to them. I wanted to get an idea of how the collection was already covering the various subjects of study in the FIMS program, while also having the chance to check and make sure everything in the catalogue was accounted for. Eventually, I created a general list of all of the content and put each book into one of five categories. One for each area of study in the FIMS graduate department, and a fifth ‘general’ category for everything that couldn’t be placed in those contexts. I ended up buying 3 items for every department but MLIS, because it already had the most comics relevant content, along with 4 new general interest items that I thought were interesting examples of classic comics, or new works that I felt deserved a highlight.
What do you think the benefit is of a graphic novels collection at the library?
Art is good for the soul and having cool stories and interesting perspectives shown in a mixed visual medium is overall good for our department regardless of academic justifications.
Have you noticed any trends or popular themes in graphic novels recently?
Long strip comics are probably the biggest trend, Manwah and Manhua being translated and published in english for apps like Tappas and Webtoon have created a huge audience for this style of comic. It’s still in some early stages as a format, but some of the more experimental stuff I’ve seen artists create that takes advantage of the scrolling layout has been really fascinating.
Can you describe a particularly rewarding experience from working on this project?
Honestly, it’s hard to think of just one, it was a really engaging learning experience for me. I think the most rewarding part of the project overall was the feeling of realizing how much I was enjoying myself. I had not taken any collections development classes, they just never really lined up well for my schedule so I took this project in the hopes of learning on the job. It was great when I realized how much I was enjoying myself – the act of organizing and figuring out how to consider the collection as a whole was incredibly fun and rewarding overall.
Did you consult with any experts during the collections development process?
I am very grateful for Lucia Cedeira Serantes help and guidance, as well as the feedback I got from my peers on the project. I was already really familiar with comics and graphic novels as I have collected them for most of my life, and in my undergrad I took a couple classes about their history and the analysis of comics from a media studies perspective. Lucia helped me with thinking about how to present a collection to its intended audience, and was always willing to give me feedback on some of the choices I made for subject specific items to add to the collection when I got to the purchasing phase of the project.
How do you think the graphic novel collection enhances the library’s offerings?
I think it’s so important for people to have access to art just generally. Graphic novels and comics are a wonderful way of sharing perspectives and stories in a way that just text alone often struggles to communicate. There are things that we can’t really visualize if we have no reference point for them, and graphic novels can provide that added context that allows us to see more accurately into what the text is trying to tell us. I think that having ideas communicated in an academic sense in these unique formats is also incredibly valuable, it gives people a chance to think in a more abstract way, which in my experience can lead to a lot of interesting and new ideas. All of that more poetic and academic reasoning aside though, I also think it’s just nice to have cool and good stories to read in an academic library. We work so hard, it’s nice to have art to interact with that isn’t directly meant to be for any specific class or deadline. Before working for the library, I would spend a lot of my afternoons during finals just reading a couple graphic novels front to back in the library to let myself relax for a bit. I could honestly go on for pages and pages about how important I feel this collection is.
What future plans or goals do you have for the graphic novel collection?
I’m graduating, so my time working at this library is quickly coming to an end. I’m honestly just hoping that the way I organized my assessment can be helpful for people who do similar work in the future. It would be nice to get some feedback from students and professors about the collection and do some more development on the academic resource side of the collection, but that will probably fall on the next student librarian who gets to work on this collection in the future.
