What some people think a public library provides. We've had two sets of unsupervised children running around the building this afternoon, refusing to listen to any kind of instructions to slow down. I'm about to try to have a talk with some parents.

But free day care is a right, no?

And then a left and then another right and then an uppercut and then...

"Hey! You knocked my block off!"

Hand the parents a bill.

Or a Kenny or a Jamaal or whatever their names are.

Had a talk with one of the parents. Her reaction suggests that things will be better next time the children are here.

With the other set it's looking like a combination of language issues and the other children egging them on.

Does the Library have a basement you could lock them in until the parents come and get them?







OH COME ON!
I'm joking.








A broom closet would do just fine.

I appreciate the suggestion, but we have no basement and the broom closet has too much stuff they could get into.

Now our old building had a basement so nasty it would have made a great deterrent. It was the sort of creepy place where anybody who got locked in overnight would probably have disappeared without a trace by next morning. The thought of getting locked up in that place would have made any child behave.

I hear the pitter-patter of little feet running in the children's area. Nothing actionable so far, but we'll monitor the situation.

Hopefully we won't have any trouble today with people trying to hog the public computers or experiencing incontinence in our chairs.

Not that you don't cut an imposing figure, but perhaps the sight of "Batgirl" screeching into the children's area on a motorcycle might put some respect for the library into their little hearts?

I do NOT need to ask for that kind of trouble! It was bad enough when I accidentally pulled something similar (in black leather, not the Batgirl outfit) during the State Librarian's outdoor speech in another town year before last.

Our local library has a Teen Zone where almost all the graphic novels are kept. Right next to the GNs is a pop/candy machine. Really surprised some kid hasn't spilled pop or smeared candy bar chocolate all over the books!

Having a machine like that right in the stacks sounds like a very bad idea. Some large libraries now have coffee bars and such near the front entrance. This is the first I've heard of a food vending machine in close proximity to the books!

The Graphic Novel sections in our libraries are one big pile of books. Most of the libraries seem to have given up on keeping them organized.

The big problem is deciding where to put them. Children's area? Young Adult? Adult? In the art section with the newspaper strip reprints? I've seen them all over at different libraries.

The bigger trick is having a comic-savvy librarian to put them in the right places. At ours, while there's a very healthy variety, things are put willy-nilly into YA or adult without much regard for content. Powers and Fables are both in YA at one branch, in adult at another (both should be in adult). And at all branches, the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is in...the adult section!

I've heard (but not actually witnessed firsthand) some real horror stories about GN material that was placed in completely inappropriate areas.

Manga must really give people fits when they're trying to decide what age group to classify it for. You're looking at these adorable cartoony characters and then suddenly there's a view up a girl's skirt, or somebody's taking all their clothes off, or there's a spray of blood everywhere. In all honesty I'm afraid of the stuff.

Why not just have a separate GN/comics/manga section?

Oh, those wacky Japanese.

BTW, my point wasn't that the GN's were misfiled. My point was that they're read more than the rest of the books and the librarians either don't have the time to continuously straighten the area or they've just given up on it. Our libraries keep them in the YA section, with the books on strips and comics history in the adult area.

I know it's futile to say, but pictures, Daphne! We need pictures.

Because you'd still have the age-appropriateness issue. Put Marvel Adventures digests in the same shelving area as the American edition of "Battle Royale"? I don't think so!

These libraries I'm talking about DO have separate GN sections. But they have to have a GN section for children, a GN section for YA, and a GN section for adults. And then make decisions about what goes where.

Some decisions are obvious, while others require judgement calls. And different communities are going to have different standards of age-appropriateness that librarians have to consider. When review publications like "Library Journal" review GNs they make an effort to give age rating suggestions, but their ratings are often more liberal (for want of a better word) than librarians in some communities would find safe. You can deplore the existence of such community standards if you want, but it's a reality that librarians have to deal with.