Category Archives: Library

Libraries, manga, and graphic novels

Robin Brenner has a very interesting post up at Good Comics for Kids, where she does some number-crunching with her manga and graphic novel circulation statistics. The most popular series aren’t what you might predict, which shows why it pays to pay close attention to circulation and patron requests when doing collection development for this type of library collection.

I haven’t tried out this database myself, but I thought it was interesting that Alexander Street Press is putting out a database dedicated to comics and graphic novels scholarship. The focus is on underground and independent comics. This looks like it will be worth checking out for anyone doing academic research in this area.

Banned Books Linkage

Even Banned Books Week has its detractors (surprise?) – Commentary from comics blog Robot 6
Banned Books Week, 2009 – Bookshelves of Doom provides a visual representation of how many banned books she’s read
First They Come for the Guinea Pigs – Commentary and links about recent book challenges from Oz and Ends
Ellen Hopkins was recently disinvited from a school visit after her books were challenged, and her livejournal has a couple posts about the incident and aftermath.

Viz gets Library War: Love and War

I don’t remember the last time I was so excited about a new manga license. Viz is going to put out the shoujo manga version of Library War, called Library War: Love and War. Library War is a tender love story about librarians who defend intellectual freedom with machine guns. How could any self-respecting librarian or book lover not adore this manga?!

I only hope that more Library War merchandise makes its way over to North America like the anime, light novels, little keychains, mugs, pencil cases, t-shirts, bookmarks, and cell phone charms. All of that might be too much to hope for, but I’m so happy that this manga is coming out here.

Fighting Librarians Anime

I enjoyed Toshokan Senso (Library War) but I’m not sure about Tatakau Shisho: The Book of Bantorra, as some of the characters seem to be having issues with their cleavage. Here’s the summary from Sea Slugs Anime Blog:

In a world where “Books” are the crystallized forms of the dead, Tonisu has his memory erased and a bomb implanted in his chest. Books are stored in the Bantorra Library where anyone who reads a book can learn their past. Bantorra Library is maintained by Armed Librarians who wield psychic powers and their enemy is a religious society known as Sindeki Kyoudan. Tonisu is ordered to kill the most powerful armed librarian Hamyuttsu Meseta. However, he falls in love and is caught up in the ongoing battle of the library.

Here’s a link to one of the promo trailers.