Today’s post: NY Comic Con reactions.
Bruce Campbell – new Evil Dead movie coming soon!
Yes, Comic Con – an event where librarians salivate almost as much as fanboys. Comics, graphic novels, manga…oh my! The librarian thinks (or the template librarian oft displayed in Library Journal and other library popular publications/conferences) “these mediums will finally connect us with youth and label the library as cool!” At least, this is how this message seems to come off when discussed in library publications and conferences. This may be a little old news at this point even for that though. Currently, our new fixation is various digital content and “makerspaces”. While various trends in the library field do yield some positive results for our field, as I believe a modified version of Makerspaces will do, others receive a level of over-hyping that never quite pans out. Example: “Everyone will be on 2nd Life in 2 years!” – I remember hearing that in library school 5 years ago….
Anyway, following that brief rant let me quickly break down my experience at the Thursday professional day at NYCC. I attended 3 workshops:
- Surviving the Public
- The Possibilities of the Cape and Mask – How to Incorporate Superheroes into Library Programming
- Foolproof Graphic Novel Collection Development
So to briefly summarize, I had some positives and negatives about all three workshops. Overall, I’d say that they indeed yielded some interesting ideas and showcased passionate librarians working hard to provide unique things in their field. With that said, here’s a breakdown:
Surviving the Public:
- I don’t really have much to say about this workshop. This was presented by the creators of “Unshelved” (http://www.unshelved.com/), comics about life in the public library. The workshop was funny and largely featured the creators displaying strips from various comics they created that were related to various situations the one creator encountered while working as a public librarian. While amusing, I don’t think anything of particular value actually came from this in terms of providing real solutions for librarian based customer service. Really, this workshop was simply affable dudes presenting funny anecdotes (and comics) relating to the daily interactions of a librarian. Amusing, charming, but lacking in actual solutions or plans.
Superheroes in Library Programming
- This workshop featured two enthusiastic, young librarians working in NJ public libraries who had some very inventive and fun ideas for using comics in library programming. Many of the ideas are ones that are not unheard of, but executed well. Others were a little more out-of-the-box. Here’s a few of the ideas presented:
- Create an Anime Club, which would include book discussions, films, games, hang out time, materials, etc.
- Anti-Prom for Anime/Manga fans. Costumes, various ‘anti-prom’ activities, etc. Seemed pretty unique.
- Mini-Con event at your library – check out the Monmouth Library’s “KAPOW” comic event – seemed to go off pretty awesomely and may be the most inspiring thing I saw a local library doing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsgszadP9hc&feature=plcp
- D&D at the library…what? I’ve been wanting to do this for, well, forever. I can DM the games!
- Create your own comics – either drawing using templates or using online software and tools.
There were some more ideas as well and a few that I thought of while listening to them. So overall you might think that this was a successful workshop for me with all the interesting ideas. However, there was just one setback: all the librarians and all the programs were all geared toward TEENS and KIDS. Unfortunately, this is problematic for me considering I am an ADULT services librarian looking to do programming for ADULTS. So, all the models, ways of promoting, and structures were based on teens or kids as the base audience.
Teens and kids as your target audience creates a VERY different scenario when looking to promote and get attendance. Many of the strategies the librarians suggested here was to work with schools, afterschool programs and parents groups. The programs were structured very much for a teen/children audience: story times and basic arts and crafts, well, don’t hold much interest for adults.
So overall the ideas were good and the librarians very enthusiastic. However, again I find that Comic Con librarian panels are focused on Young Adult librarians and Teen programming.
As an adult services librarian, I can’t help but seen Teens as a variation of this picture.
Graphic Novel Collection Development
- I’ll make this pretty quick, considering I’ve been to like 5 different GN Collection development workshops/panels. This was another useful panel with ideas for new materials, authors and trends that I may or may not have known about.
- This program actually had as good or better ideas for programs related to comics that might be applicable for adults. Again, some ideas that are obvious and some unique others:
- graphic novel swap
- comic/anime clubs
- movie tie-in events: comic book discussion + show the movie
- artist/author visits
- Comic design contests
- I added costume contest to this list…
- This also had some ideas and sources on digital comic collections for libraries. This was helpful as I’ve been trying to put together a graphic novel iPad that could be borrowed for my library.
Overall: all the workshops were decent to good, but pretty much centered on teens and kids. Certainly programming structure is different for teens/kids than adults. Perhaps as important though, is that there is also a huge difference in how you promote and get attendance for those events. Networking with the schools and parents are a huge gateway to kids and those structures are often already pretty solid. Further, libraries now have, like it or not, a daycare type element to them. Library programs allow parents (and nannies) to have children occupied during busy days. For teens parents enjoy library programs as it gives teens something to do after school that is positive. Again, there is some existent structure that helps for getting teens to library programs. NOTE: I do NOT mean to say that this is easy or that this is always true. I only say it to draw a distinct different between programming for teen/kids vs adults.
With all that said, I continually struggle to get adults into library programs. In my previous post you’ll see a whole breakdown of my thoughts on what are good and bad practices and what I need to plan to do in the future. As such, I won’t repeat all that here. However, I will say that I’ve put together some programs related to comics for this month which are all pretty interesting However, I’ve had lots of trouble getting people into the programs. In the end, I believe the solution is to focus on a few programs that are recurring on a weekly/monthly basis and have buy-in and partnerships from specific local organizations that can guarantee attendance and/or cross promotion.
I planned comics/video game programming as I recently finished re-cataloging the entire graphic novel collection to make it easier to browse, we started a video game collection (Wii, Xbox360 and PS3) and NYCC was happening and I thought would provide a good tie-in. Here’s what I’ve planned:
- DIY hands-on workshops on Drawing and Writing your own comics taught by a local comic artist. There will be 2 sessions and both will be hands on.
- Video Game Tournament AND Comic Book Trivia Event – playing Tekken Tag Tournament 2 with the winner getting a Gamestop Gift Certificate. Comic book trivia questions will accompany the event with prizes for each question answered correctly. Free pizza and soda to boot.
- Lecture, presentation and art display on the life and work of Jack Kirby by trustee of the local Jack Kirby Museum.
To promote these events I did a few things. First, I contacted and promoted the event to students groups at the local college (Stevens Tech) – both the Video Game Club and Anime Club distributed information to their members. Both seemed enthusiastic and said their members should be interested. I also did some tabling at the library during lunchtime at Stevens Tech in partnership with the awesome librarians there :). I brought samples of both collections and could sign up people for library cards and for the events. While I signed up over 10 students for cards in just about 1 1/2 hours, I couldn’t get any signups on the tournament or other events. We also promote all programs in the following ways:
- monthly ad in local newspaper
- Facebook/Twitter/Eventbrite
- library website
- flyers in and out of the library
- email/print newsletter
- ads in online local newspapers
Right now its looking like I will have low attendance for all of these programs, which, well, sucks. I have generally been doing well on adult programs in the last 2 years, but over the past few months the programs have just not been hitting. This month appears to not be an exception to that trend. Again, I think the solution is to focus on a few recurring programs that have buy-in from local organizations. I’m going to try and keep pushing the social networking, online promotions and contact more local groups to try and get more people. We will see what I can come up with. Right now though, it seems I’ve fallen into the classic adult library programming trap: cool ideas for programs with embarrassingly low attendance.
Again, I’ve had a pretty excellent track record in the past, but recently I’ve been swinging and missing. Time for a restructuring I think!
Thanks for reading. Again, post any thoughts you have – especially suggestions!
beratedlibrarian 