I had my first manga related question at the reference desk today. It was very funny, a student walked up, rummaged in his backpack for a manga volume and pointed to the “about the author” section in the back, saying “I need more information on this guy!”

However, it is a little tough to find articles on a specific work of manga that aren’t merely short reviews. (We checked various sections of Lexis-Nexis, Gale Databases, MLA, Asian Studies Bibliography, and JSTOR for some Asian Studies journals.) This is a case where you’d probably be able to find more in terms of sheer volume of information just on fan sites, although when you’re writing a paper on a topic you obviously are hoping for more than just what you’d be able to find by googling. The student ended up with a few articles and a copy of one of Frederik Schodt’s books. Hopefully that will be enough.

See, this is why being a librarian is great. No matter how random your own personal hobbies may be, you never know when the random bits of information floating around in your head will come in handy at work!