From: Karen L. Simonetti <klsimonetti>
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 17:24:32 -0500

At 02:36 PM 4/14/2004, Denise Anton Wright wrote in part:
 
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At the risk of revealing my own not-so-blissful ignorance, I can't help but ask the below question regarding public libraries adding comic books to their collections. (Note: It has been years since I last worked full-time in public libraries.)

Regarding libraries "accepting comic books as a valid library collection" does anyone think part of the problem may be in the actual physical of comic books? Ignorance showing: Graphic novels are usually published in sturdy enough formats that said purchase are "okay" as the life-span of the graphic novel will be considered a reasonable purchase (with budget funds) given the anticipated "useful shelf-life." What is the anticipated life-span (ie, circulation-life) of the basic comic book? Are libraries purchasing the fragile compiled and stapled pages of paper that I recall from my 1960s youth of comic books? Or are today's comic books printed on such materials in such a fashion to withstand anticipated circulation-life?

On a different note, do most of you all consider comic book to be a graphic novel per se? A subset therein? Frankly, I think that the two concepts are different forms of communication/expression. And it is a disserve to not recognize the separate and distinct formats.

And Denise, do you happen to have a URL for the 2005 Illinois summer reading theme "Superheroes--Powered by Books"? I'm curious to see what type of programming is being planned. Thanks in Advance!

Karen Sue...who apologizes if this query is stale, I've been having ISP connection problems and may have missed a post or two....

Karen L. Simonetti email: klsimonetti at earthlink.net
Received on Wed 14 Apr 2004 05:24:32 PM CDT