The Jen Library at SCAD’s Savannah campus has continued to support comics and graphic novels and everyone at SEQALab gives their thanks for their tremendous work in bringing our favorite art form into the hands of students. If you haven’t been to the library lately, the graphic novels have moved! they are no longer on the second floor, but they are part of the First Floor Collection! That’s right! We have a special section towards the back wall that is much more accessible and easier to find than the previous spot.

A few weeks ago, SEQALab shared our thoughts on the places in Savannah that sell comics, over at The District. Part of our research resulted in a statement from representatives of the Jen Library. We had received it during the writing process and it got lost before publication. We didn’t pull a quote from it for the article, but now that we have recovered it, we wanted to share it here, after the jump.

Comic Books and Graphic Novels in the SCAD Libraries

Our ever growing comic and graphic novel collections have come from a variety of sources. We have had several major donors, including Shirrel Rhoades, Dr. Esteban Fuertes, and former SCAD Professor Catherine Cupps. Dean John Lowe has donated a sizable collection to the Jen Library. We also purchase titles from smaller presses when they are available in a limited or special edition. Recently, we received a fairly large donation of graphic novels that we have been working to get onto the shelves.

When a donation comes in, it is evaluated to decide where to shelve the materials. Graphic novels may go to the circulating collection either on the Savannahor Atlanta campus or may be housed in Special Collections at the Savannah campus. Decisions on where to place these titles include criteria such as rarity, condition, and publisher.  We try to provide as much access as we can to the less rare titles by placing them in the circulating collection.  It is our hope that these titles will serve not only as artistic inspiration for students, but also, be valued for their literary content. Circulation statistics are up for these titles. We house most Vertigo titles as well as graphic novels from smaller presses and limited or special editions in Special Collections. Non-fiction titles in graphic format and titles that we can identify as being created by a SCAD professor or SCAD students (present or former) are also housed in Special Collections. All graphic novels can be found in the online library catalog after they are processed.  If the title is in the circulating collection, it can be checked out, but if the title is in Special Collections, it is necessary to use it in the Special Collections Reading Room.

Comic books are housed in Special Collections. We have a large variety of titles and we sort them by publisher. Of course, some titles, such as Star Trek, jump publishers a lot, but we try to keep those together as much as possible. Comic book titles are sorted and put into a database, then are cataloged as time permits. Cataloging comic books is very time consuming.We don’t have large runs of most of our titles, but we do have a nice cross section of titles and publishers available. Since most of our comic book issues are not in the on line catalog, if a student is looking for a specific title, the best thing to do is ask.

If you have would like to donate your own work to the library, or if you have a collection that is too big and you want to edit it, we will happily accept your donations. If you have questions about graphic novels or comic books at the Jen Library, email us: Deborah at drouse@scad.edu or Gretchen at ghill@scad.edu. Also check out our blog for information about what is new in Special Collections.

Thanks to Deborah Rouse and the Jen Library for all their work to bring comics into the hands of SCAD students!