Graphic novels/trade collections are one of the most circulated items in our local library system. I'd say roughly 50% of the current Marvel and DC trade releases (i.e. new material and new collections of classic material) gets bought in and put out by our local system, divided over the 5 different branches that comprise our county's library system, with 3 having heavier collections than the other two. More in demand series have multiple copies bought in, one for each branch that might circulate it. Most are filed in the young adult section. Other publishers are less represented, but Walking Dead, Saga and a few other Image titles are well represented, the Avatar stuff from Dark Horse (and the Star Wars stuff when DH had the license), Lumberjanes from BOOM! the Disney collections from Fantagraphics, a decent selection of titles from First Second, the Raina Telgmeier stuff, etc. are all seen on the shelves. Some stuff is not filed in the young adult section, some in the 741 section of the Dewey system (comics strip & art classification) others by topic. Things like Maus go in the section of WWII Holocaust history for example.

Our system also offers the Hoopla service, where pretty much every DC, most Marvel, and many other publishers trades are available digitally for free to read, and some publishers offer single issues digitally free to read as well. If you have a library card with out local library system, you can access the Hoopla service. You get 10 borrows per month of the service (any combination of trades or single issues, but also a ton of movies, tv episodes, e-books, audio books and what have you, bit limited to 10 total borrows each month).

According to DC's presentation at the American Library Association a year or so back, libraries in the US represent the largest (not retail reseller or distributor of books) purchaser of graphic novels/trade collections in the United States. Which is why lines like DC's Ink and Zoom were debuted at the ALA conference and are geared towards young readers which make up the largest percentage of library patrons in the US.

In many parts of the US, libraries are the ONLY place where readers can encounter comics in any form in the wild. There are no comic shops or other brick and mortar retail options that carry comics or trades in those areas.

So yes, libraries can do something for the comic industry, and already are doing a lot for the industry, at least in the US.

And it's not only public libraries. Here in town the library at Wittenberg University has a huge selection of scholarship on comics and collections of comic material in their library. A former professor there (Matthew Smith) did internships of students at SDCC and published a book about it, and taught several courses on comics there, so the library bought in a lot of material. He moved on to another university (I believe Radcliffe but I am not sure) and I am not sure if the courses continued after his departure, but the books are still in the library and available to the students and the community-those will local public library cards can get a guest borrower card at the university and borrow a limited number of items that are not on hold for particular classes). So university libraries can and in some cases do things for the comic industry.

I can't speak to libraries outside the U.S., but within the U.S. graphic novels and trade collections is one of the fastest growing areas of libraries, and generally are one of the most circulated classifications of items in systems that do carry a good assortment of them.

-M

They are funded by the municipal & state governments and a local non-profit called the Friends of the Library Association here in my county, but it can vary from county to county, state to state. The librarians are municipal/state employees though, and subject to state budgetary cuts and such (about 6-7 years back most of the employees were furloughed for a month and the libraries reduced their hours to 3 days a week during a state shutdown over budget issues, and at that point money for new items was severely limited. A lot of people quit, and it was the hew hired that replaced them that really beefed up the graphic novel and started the renaissance of those sections after a pretty dire time). The people making decisions about what to buy are the circulation directors at each branch, but orders need approvals (usually rubber stamped as long as they stay within budget), and those circulation director's are hired by the county government, so no, not really run by councils, but there are several levels of bureaucracy involved.

-M

That's very interesting.

Some of our libraries have downsized CD and DVD sales. Some are on reduced hours.

Oh, and why does the US have great-sounding counties like Clark County and Orange County while us Brits get ordinary-sounding counties like Warwickshire and Staffordshire?

My local library has a great mixture of all Comic Books, mainly DC Archives, Marvel Masterworks, and in the Kids sections they even have about 100-150 old comic books that any kid could go there and read them as long they return them back. Our library is a good source of Comic Book stuff from Golden Age to the present day. I go there about once a month and check out a book on George Reeves.

My experience with libraries in Canada and western U.S. is a smattering of comic book originated material in collections, more likely to have how to draw, history of, or price guide books than comics, but I have seen: Comic book volumes in the foreign language Japanese and Chinese areas. A fair number of comic strip collections which hasn't changed over the decades really, just the formats have gone from cheap paper b&w paperback up to acid free archival paper hardcover sets. The Seattle library had an early copy of The Seven Lively Arts, a book that came out in the 1920s and included a section on newspaper comic strips. Every hardcover Beanworld from Dark Horse at several branches in Canada. Not much Marvel or DC stuff at all anywhere I've been though (could be they found people steal them?) Modern Japanese manga in English, multiple numbered volumes, but in the kids' section.

There have been programs hosted by the library in Canada on how to create your own comic book and I'm sure that can't hurt the form's popularity. Most U.S. libraries I always see a line-up of people wanting to use the on-line computers, never seen a line-up like that in Canada, but it may've been seasonal workers I saw in the U.S. many places.

Having worked in the bookselling industry, working regularly with libraries, they can't help the industry economically. They have limited purchasing funds, depending on the community and use inter-library loan to bosst accessibility. So, at best, you sell a couple of copies to one library, that may be circulated in a dozen communities. That doesn't result in tens of thousands in sales.

Our sales to libraries generally came in specific periods, when funding was available. It was focused on the most popular genres, which for the youth market meant YA titles, picture books and manga. Traditional comics fell way down the line, due to demand.

For the comic industry to improve, they have to build individual demand and that means appealing to the mass market and they abandoned that, nearly completely, in the 1980s. That is their key problem and one which they have proven unable to conceptualize, to find solutions. Instead, they focus on trying to boost sales, in the short term, in a niche market. Short term solutions only bring short term gain.