1. I don’t think floppies could survive circulation.
2. I read comics almost exclusively from the library and I’ve never seen floppies available.

My wife is a librarian and is in charge of her collection, and the single biggest problem she has with trades and graphic novels is the poor quality of the binding. She tries to get hardcovers whenever possible, and the book company will put a sort of plastic lacquer on softcovers, but the pages fall out of the cover very quickly.

It's very unfortunate -- TPBs and graphic novels circulate VERY well in her library, but the quality issue is a serious stumbling block to increasing the number of titles available.

There is a theft problem, but it's really not too severe, certainly not worse than the rest of the collection.

Trades just fall apart after a few weeks. It's really hard to see the value in something that may only last a month, at best.

(theres a theft problem too, but that's no bigger than the DVD theft problem so I can't single that out)

From what I have see over the past almost year, graphic novels offer some of the better reading out there for high school age and have definitely realized the potential of the comic book storytelling form in an accessible, populist format. Makes me happy!

Unfortunately, as has been mentioned in this thread, there are some cases where things are being stuck in the YA section because they are graphic novels with no individual attention paid to the actual content - which means, some inappropriate books have slipped through. Hopefully, that will get finessed with time.

The standard characters are all frontline staff. People that readers from the general public can recognize, job-wise. A couple years ago, due to popular demand, they did an arc that used a cataloger. The plot device was finding a copy of Preacher in the kid's section and needing to reclassify it.

Actually, Greg, have you had them come in and talk to your students? They're in Seattle. The writer is a teen librarian and the artist has an unrelated job in high tech. They're pretty fun people. I've met them a couple times.

This week I was thrilled to find a copy of American Born Chinese, which is something I've wanted to read, and grabbed it before they put it out for circulation!

I'm a social studies teacher and part of the giant pack of teacher resources that came with our textbooks is a book of comics to teach certain lessons. We are learning about Japan now and the whole manga/video game thing at least gives them something to relate to.

Personally I'm just happy to see these kids reading. Some of these students might not pick up a book otherwise. I also find that the Halo novels, based on the popular game, are something all the kids want to read.

Most libraries only buy trades. A few do subscribe to floppies just like they do to magazines. I think Puma's library does that, for example.

I subscribe to a 'comics in libraries' listserv. For librarians. Most of the discussions are manga and anime. That's just where the demand is. Interestingly, when the librarians talk about personal favorites, it's frequently American stuff. But in terms of what circulates, it's all Japanese. A generation thing, I expect.

One thing that hurts DC and Marvel in the library market is that their trades tend to be pretty low quality. They fall apart after just a few circulations. We had to give up on Showcase editions for that reason. Libraries with lots of money will buy hardcover editions to get around that, but that cuts deeply enough into your budget that it's more common to just give up and buy from some other publisher.

Publishers Weekly has a free online newsletter that's comics-only and a good source of what's happening in the library/bookstore market. If nothing else, it tells you how they decide what to buy.

There is growing demand for nonfiction material. People are regularly posting queries to the listserv about books regarding particular wars or other major events. Social studies teachers will ask them whether such books exist because they want to use them as part of their lesson plans if so.

Seattle's selection is excellent. And they don't wait to buy books if they know a good one is coming. I picked up Sarah Varon's latest on the day it was released at the library without having to put in a request.

I keep meaning to ask Hayden who decides whether a graphic novel goes in the Teen section or the Non-Fiction (741.5) section. I've seen stuff that could potentially be deemed "inappropriate" for young adults (Blankets) in the Teen section and all-ages stuff like Bone in the Non-Fiction section. It's interesting to hear that both books were purchased out of the same budget.

Kind of weird budgeting, given that the vast majority of graphic novels (from whatever country, genre, or publisher) are fiction.

One thing that I see as a bit of disrespect to the medium is that nearly all comics in the system, regardless of content, are catalogued in the "Teen" section. Not only is this a bit disrespectful to the diversity, artistry, and complexity of the shining examples of the medium (few as they might be), but it also creates some issues with age appropriateness. I've checked out the collection of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen where Hyde rapes the invisible man on panel and was shocked to see the Teen sticker on the binding!

My library has some great stuff, but the comics sections have maybe a few hundred books total (including children's and strips.) It seems to depend on donations, so lots of them don't have multiple copies, and series are incomplete. Also their filing is terrible: some are in Young Adult, some in Juvenile, some non-fiction, and some on the shelves with the regular fiction. (This even happens with books in the same series!)

There has been more new stuff lately, though. I think they've started to actually purchase graphic novels!