An enterprising reader of The Comics Reporter checked the San Bernardino County Library catalog and saw that Paul Gravett’s Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics has a YA call number. The reader, Ray Cornwall, questioned whether the book was shelved in the teen section, despite a Library Journal review that warned of sex and gore, which would raise some questions about the initial incident.
It would—if it were true. But in the very first article on this incident, Nanette Bricker-Barret, the library collection development coordinator, said otherwise:
Barret said that since the book was purchased about a year ago, it has been correctly placed in the adult collection.
OK, so, I’m a reporter—time to report. I called Ms. Bricker-Barret and she told me the following: the San Bernardino County Library has a shared catalog with the Riverside County Library, and Riverside tagged it as YA. San Bernardino classified it as an adult book and shelved it in the adult section. Some libraries in the system shelve YA nonfiction alongside adult nonfiction, and some don’t, so it’s possible the book was near a YA book in some locations—but it was cataloged and shelved as an adult book.
In one interview, library director Ed Kieczykowski said library patrons could still get the book from the Riverside library through inter-library loan. How’s that working out? Barret says one of their copies went missing and there are “five or six holds” on the other.
Barret stands by what she said in the first article: “Library policy affirms the American Library Association’s Library Bill of Rights, Freedom to Read and Freedom to View statements.”
“But,” she added, “given a direct order, we have to follow direct orders.”
Extra bonus: Local news video from KCAL 9.
UPDATE: The TV link doesn’t take you directly to the video, so here are the directions: Look on the right hand side of the page for “Browse Video” and keep going backwards through the pages until you get to this one—it is dated April 25. You can use the double-arrow “next” button on the side to get pages beyond 12. As of this writing (Friday night) it’s on page 14.
Thanks for following up on that!
Good work! Glad you cleared that up! I’m happy to be wrong in this.
One question, though- why did Riverside have this classified as YA, when it clearly shouldn’t have been? The book belongs in an adult section with an adult tag.
Ray,
I can’t imagine why Riverside would class it as YA, other than the all-comics-are-for-kids mentality. This book is quite definitely not YA material, and it’s not even a comic—it’s a book about comics, a distinction that seems to be lost on a lot of people. Hopefully, after this brouhaha, Riverside will reclassify it.
In my library, YA nonfiction is shelved with the adult nonfiction but tagged with a bright red-and-yellow sticker. If my kid brought it home with that sticker, I’d contact the library and ask them to take it off. Putting a book like Gravett’s book, or Happy Mania, where younger kids can get it is just asking for trouble. But the solution is to move it, not take it out altogether.
I mostly agree with the idea that the book should just have the tag removed.
But the librarian’s husband in me thinks this way, too- there’s not a library in the land that would shelve Bondage Fairies, the book where the squirrel-boinking photo came from. Given that, it’s not a horribly heinous decision to decide to remove the book. It’s a sad decision, as I hate to see the book removed; I think it’s a valuable surbey of manga and the culture that surrounds it. But it’s not an absolutely horrible decision. There’s a shred of rationality in it.
If I’m the librarian, I yank the tag and reshelve, but I’m not the librarian.
Here are some opinions that were published in the Daily Press last week. These opinions are not listed in the open archives. You may register at the Daily Press website for free access or click on the links below, which may expire at any time.
Suzanne Oliver (Former Victorville Library Branch Manager)
http://epaper.vvdailypress.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VkRQLzIwMDYvMDQvMjMjQXIwMTMwMg==&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom
Bill Postmus (Chairman of San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors)
http://epaper.vvdailypress.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VkRQLzIwMDYvMDQvMjMjQXIwMTMwMw==&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom
Steve Williams (Daily Press)
http://epaper.vvdailypress.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=VkRQLzIwMDYvMDQvMjMjQXIwMTIwMQ==&Mode=Gif&Locale=english-skin-custom
Thanks very much for the extra reporting and to “Victorville Resident” for the three new links. It’ll be interesting to see how this all unfolds from here..