Gillian Bartoo is the District Cataloger for Cambridge Public Schools in Cambridge, MA
Let’s talk about classifying graphic books. Usually when somebody says to me that their graphics cataloging is a mess what they usually mean is the classifications, or call numbers, are a mess: some are classed as 741.5, some as FIC, and some with other Dewey numbers. Raina Telgemeier’s Smile is in FIC or 741.5 (“work of imagination, comic book”) but Sisters is at 306.8 (“family relationships”). Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales are in FIC, 741.5 and 973. El Deafo is cataloged as a biography. Maus I is at 741.5, because it is assigned as a classic text of comic book study, but Maus II is at 940.53 (“World War II”). Every Batman has a different cutter. Manga has an extended 741.5952 call number. Early reader graphics are split between Early Reader and Graphic collections and have both E and 741.5 call numbers. How does anyone get this stuff to sit together in a logical way?
Advising bodies have pretty much thrown up their hands at graphics classification. ALA’s Graphic Novels and Comics Round Table (GNCRT) issued a best practices document for graphics cataloging in September 2022, and said this about classification:
“This document does not contain guidance on comics classification. Given the wide variance of classifications systems used by libraries (Library of Congress, Dewey Decimal, home-grown, hybrid, etc.), and the hyper-local focus of cuttering, classification is considered too variable and individualized a practice to be a candidate for prescriptive guidance and standardization” (GNCRT, page 1).
LC and OCLC simply assign classification numbers as dictated by their rules on an individual volume basis and leave it up to you to accept that assignment or change it according to local practice. This is always the case, but nowhere is it more obvious than with graphics. Allowing everybody carte blanche with classification of graphics creates a certain amount of havoc when large cataloging entities like LC and OCLC share out standardized cataloging that includes suggested call numbers. While the libraries that feed the LC and OCLC MARC record databases with original cataloging are all likely to catalog nonfiction books about pet dogs at 636.7 because that is a standard classification rule, a graphic nonfiction about pet dogs could land in 741.5 or 636.7, or another place according to the local practice of each library. Relying blindly on suggested classification for graphics can run counter to your valued consistency in call numbers.
FIRST THINGS FIRST
So how do you make order out of chaos? Take a long look at your graphics. Graphics are generally defined as works primarily in a sequential, paneled format using illustration as the prime conveyor of information and meaning. Hallmarks include “bubble” speech balloons and short, informative text blocks within the panels. In most school libraries that collect graphics there is a combination of the following “subtypes”: graphic novels (New Kid, Dog Man); comic book compilations (Marvel comics like Spider Man, Lumber Janes); comic strip compilations (Calvin & Hobbes, Phoebe & Her Unicorn, Big Nate); and manga (Dragon Ball Z, Fullmetal Alchemist). Also falling in 741.5 are cartooning techniques (“how to draw” books) and histories of comics and cartoons. If you catalog your biographies to subject, you will also have cartoonist biographies and autobiographies in here.
After looking at the scope of your graphics collection, decide how you want to shelve them. Do you want to shelve all your graphics, regardless of content, in a distinct collection from other materials? Should they be interfiled with fiction and nonfiction? Will early reader graphics go with other graphics or with other early readers? What about comic strip compilations, cartooning technique, and history and criticism books about graphics? My intention here is to talk classification, so space considerations will depend on the size of your graphics collection, your shelving space, and any consortium or district standards. You make up the rules, but below I will lay out some scenario considerations.
ASSIGNING A CLASS
According to the Dewey Decimal Classification, 23rd ed. (DDC 23), 741.5 is the basic Dewey number for works of imagination in comic book, graphic novel, fotonovela, cartoon, caricature and comic strip format and works fine in most school libraries for all things graphic except nonfiction graphics (but I’ll get to that) (DDC23, v. 3, p.740). You can break it down more if you want:
741.51 How to draw comics
741.53 Criticism of graphics
741.56 Cartoons, caricatures, and comic strip compilations
741.56952 Manga
741.59 History of graphics
FIC vs. 741.5
Some folks prefer using a FIC type of call number for graphic novels because they want to interfile them within their Fiction collection or to distinguish them within a graphics collection as fictional, novel-like titles. Doing this conveniently leaves 741.5 for drawing technique, strips, and history and criticism titles. You also need to consider what you’re going to do with other types of “fictional” graphic content: strip compilations, comic book compilations and manga, for example. Do you also want them as FIC or 741.5 or another number?
NONFICTION GRAPHICS
The DDC 23 manual instructs classification for graphics whose main purpose is to “inform or persuade” to the subject. So The Cartoon History of the United States is 973 and Crows: Genius Birds from the Science Comics series gets classed as 598.75. These are relatively straightforward as far as I’m concerned: put it in subject class. If you don’t care about or don’t have time to parse fiction from nonfiction, throw them all in 741.5. The only question I think you have to answer for yourself is if you’re going to interfile these with the rest of your Dewey collection or pull them out and put them in a graphics sublocation elsewhere.
Nonfiction graphics – the murkier side of things
If you are going to parse out fiction from nonfiction it gets difficult in the case of events, history, and biography-based graphics that are storylike in their presentation. The DDC 23 says
FIRST THINGS FIRST
So how do you make order out of chaos? Take a long look at your graphics. Graphics are generally defined as works primarily in a sequential, paneled format using illustration as the prime conveyor of information and meaning. Hallmarks include “bubble” speech balloons and short, informative text blocks within the panels. In most school libraries that collect graphics there is a combination of the following “subtypes”: graphic novels (New Kid, Dog Man); comic book compilations (Marvel comics like Spider Man, Lumber Janes); comic strip compilations (Calvin & Hobbes, Phoebe & Her Unicorn, Big Nate); and manga (Dragon Ball Z, Fullmetal Alchemist). Also falling in 741.5 are cartooning techniques (“how to draw” books) and histories of comics and cartoons. If you catalog your biographies to subject, you will also have cartoonist biographies and autobiographies in here.
After looking at the scope of your graphics collection, decide how you want to shelve them. Do you want to shelve all your graphics, regardless of content, in a distinct collection from other materials? Should they be interfiled with fiction and nonfiction? Will early reader graphics go with other graphics or with other early readers? What about comic strip compilations, cartooning technique, and history and criticism books about graphics? My intention here is to talk classification, so space considerations will depend on the size of your graphics collection, your shelving space, and any consortium or district standards. You make up the rules, but below I will lay out some scenario considerations.
ASSIGNING A CLASS
According to the Dewey Decimal Classification, 23rd ed. (DDC 23), 741.5 is the basic Dewey number for works of imagination in comic book, graphic novel, fotonovela, cartoon, caricature and comic strip format and works fine in most school libraries for all things graphic except nonfiction graphics (but I’ll get to that) (DDC23, v. 3, p.740). You can break it down more if you want:
741.51 How to draw comics
741.53 Criticism of graphics
741.56 Cartoons, caricatures, and comic strip compilations
741.56952 Manga
741.59 History of graphics
FIC vs. 741.5
Some folks prefer using a FIC type of call number for graphic novels because they want to interfile them within their Fiction collection or to distinguish them within a graphics collection as fictional, novel-like titles. Doing this conveniently leaves 741.5 for drawing technique, strips, and history and criticism titles. You also need to consider what you’re going to do with other types of “fictional” graphic content: strip compilations, comic book compilations and manga, for example. Do you also want them as FIC or 741.5 or another number?
NONFICTION GRAPHICS
The DDC 23 manual instructs classification for graphics whose main purpose is to “inform or persuade” to the subject. So The Cartoon History of the United States is 973 and Crows: Genius Birds from the Science Comics series gets classed as 598.75. These are relatively straightforward as far as I’m concerned: put it in subject class. If you don’t care about or don’t have time to parse fiction from nonfiction, throw them all in 741.5. The only question I think you have to answer for yourself is if you’re going to interfile these with the rest of your Dewey collection or pull them out and put them in a graphics sublocation elsewhere.
Nonfiction graphics – the murkier side of things
If you are going to parse out fiction from nonfiction it gets difficult in the case of events, history, and biography-based graphics that are storylike in their presentation. The DDC 23 says
“class an account of a true event or series of events using the names of people involved, not inventing characters or distorting facts to enhance an intended artistic effect, and not going beyond the information available to the author from investigation and interviews, in the discipline appropriate to the facts described” (DDC 23, vol. 4, p.94).
I don’t find this particularly helpful when trying to class the Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales series which depict historical events and people in realistic detail. Are the speech bubbles quotes or imagined speech? Is the nature of interpretive artwork and limited text “distorting to enhance an intended artistic effect”? Are these “intended” to inform or persuade, or intended to amuse and entertain? This holds true also with Raina Telgemeier’s Smile books and Shannon Hale’s Real friends series as well. What about the graphics Maus or El Deafo which are autobiographical but depict the characters not as humans but animals? These two titles are frequently cataloged as nonfiction, but if the main conveyance of information in the format is graphic and the graphic is clearly distorted for reality is it really nonfiction? Personally, I don’t really think it matters that much at the school level where these are classed as long as you’re consistent across a series in the case of Hazardous Tales or genre of nonfiction such as biographies or histories. Try to make a rule and stick to it.
VENDOR CATALOGING AND GRAPHICS
Here’s a scenario for you: pretend we’ve got a nonfiction comic series about different breeds of dogs. Time to catalog the Corgis volume, the Setters volume, and the Newfoundlands volume.
Corgis is first cataloged by Library Z. Library Z’s rule is to catalog nonfiction to subject so it codes a suggested call number of 636.7 into the MARC record. Anybody who copies that record will get a suggested call number of 636.7.
Setters is first cataloged by Library Y. Library Y’s rule is to catalog all graphics to 741.5 regardless of content so it codes a suggested call number of 741.5 into the MARC record. Anybody who copies that record will get a suggested call number of 741.5.
Library Y also catalogs Newfoundlands first. It assigns the call number 741.5.
A school library buys shelf-ready books from its vendor. The school’s specifications say to catalog all nonfiction graphics to subject and any 741.5 titles to FIC. Vendor catalogs Corgis to 636.7 (the suggested call number by Library Z) and Setters to FIC because the suggested call number from LIbrary Y is 741.5. The vendor isn’t wrong given the rules as set down in the specs. Common sense is not in play here.
The school library gets a copy of Newfoundlands donated, and an aide does the copy cataloging, routinely accepting the suggested call number. They search the library software for matching records and find Library Y’s record. The suggested call number is 741.5. The aide catalogs Newfoundlands at 741.5. The library now has three volumes on the same subject from the same series with three different call numbers.
Moral of the story: watch your graphics cataloging like a hawk. Make your cataloging rules for graphics, and check every new graphic before you accept it with the knowledge that vendors and helpers may mess it up because they haven’t read this article.
ASSIGNING CUTTERS
The path of least resistance for cuttering is always to use the primary author. If this is what is in your own head and on your vendor’s specifications it will work fine for most of your graphics. However, comic book series from publishers like Marvel and DC Comics frequently change authors, or have different story arcs written by different authors. The authors are less well known than the series title or main character. In comic book stores, compilations are usually filed by publisher and then title. It may better serve your patrons to cutter these by publisher, series title, or series main character. While this is easy enough a rule to implement if you are doing your own cataloging, vendors will want an either/or rule: cut all graphics by author or title. You will have to edit and retag these when they come from the vendor.
A SIDE NOTE ABOUT SHELVING INDICATORS AND SUBLOCATIONS
The distinction between shelving indicators and sublocations is another local choice that you need to make. As far as I’m concerned it’s dictated by how your software works with these two sorting choices— some work better displaying, sorting and reporting by indicator and some by sublocation. The best way you can tell is to see how many reports you can run by sublocation. If you can’t, don’t use sublocations. (I’m side-eyeing you, Destiny.)
Any way, in general:
Shelving indicators are text or numbers that are part of an individual book’s call number and tag. They are usually a word or code that indicates what collection or special collection a book is shelved in. For instance REF, PROF, or GN at the start of a call number are shelving indicators. The lack of a shelving indicator in a library can also dictate where a book goes. So, for instance in a library that uses indicators, a dictionary may be REF 423 WEB, Telgemeier’s Smile GN FIC TEL, and a novel by Pennypacker shelved in general collection Fiction is FIC PEN.
Sublocations indicate what collection or special collection a book is shelved in but are coded as a separate field in your software. Sublocations display in most catalogs as separate from the call number. In general, you don’t include these in the call number field, as it is redundant. You indicate where the book is shelved on the spine with a genre or collection sticker, color dot or other visible marker. So the same three books listed above would be 423 WEB, FIC TEL, and FIC PEN on the call number and spine with the sublocations coded as Reference, Graphic Novels, and Fiction respectively. The reference and graphic novel titles get spine stickers for accurate shelving.
Shelving indicators and sublocations are often used together in libraries to reinforce each other. This is another decision you have to make whenever you are pulling together any kind of subcollection from the general collection. As always with cataloging and classification, the most important key is to set down rules and be consistent.
Because of the explosion in Graphics publishing and collecting over the last 20 years or so, cataloging and classification of them is an emerging and ever changing practice. This allows you to be more creative with your graphics catalog, but it also means a higher amount of time and maintenance needs to go into classifying those titles. Let me know what creative ways you have come up with to balance consistency, time management and accessibility with your graphics. And, as always, feel free to write to me with any questions you may have.
VENDOR CATALOGING AND GRAPHICS
Here’s a scenario for you: pretend we’ve got a nonfiction comic series about different breeds of dogs. Time to catalog the Corgis volume, the Setters volume, and the Newfoundlands volume.
Corgis is first cataloged by Library Z. Library Z’s rule is to catalog nonfiction to subject so it codes a suggested call number of 636.7 into the MARC record. Anybody who copies that record will get a suggested call number of 636.7.
Setters is first cataloged by Library Y. Library Y’s rule is to catalog all graphics to 741.5 regardless of content so it codes a suggested call number of 741.5 into the MARC record. Anybody who copies that record will get a suggested call number of 741.5.
Library Y also catalogs Newfoundlands first. It assigns the call number 741.5.
A school library buys shelf-ready books from its vendor. The school’s specifications say to catalog all nonfiction graphics to subject and any 741.5 titles to FIC. Vendor catalogs Corgis to 636.7 (the suggested call number by Library Z) and Setters to FIC because the suggested call number from LIbrary Y is 741.5. The vendor isn’t wrong given the rules as set down in the specs. Common sense is not in play here.
The school library gets a copy of Newfoundlands donated, and an aide does the copy cataloging, routinely accepting the suggested call number. They search the library software for matching records and find Library Y’s record. The suggested call number is 741.5. The aide catalogs Newfoundlands at 741.5. The library now has three volumes on the same subject from the same series with three different call numbers.
Moral of the story: watch your graphics cataloging like a hawk. Make your cataloging rules for graphics, and check every new graphic before you accept it with the knowledge that vendors and helpers may mess it up because they haven’t read this article.
ASSIGNING CUTTERS
The path of least resistance for cuttering is always to use the primary author. If this is what is in your own head and on your vendor’s specifications it will work fine for most of your graphics. However, comic book series from publishers like Marvel and DC Comics frequently change authors, or have different story arcs written by different authors. The authors are less well known than the series title or main character. In comic book stores, compilations are usually filed by publisher and then title. It may better serve your patrons to cutter these by publisher, series title, or series main character. While this is easy enough a rule to implement if you are doing your own cataloging, vendors will want an either/or rule: cut all graphics by author or title. You will have to edit and retag these when they come from the vendor.
A SIDE NOTE ABOUT SHELVING INDICATORS AND SUBLOCATIONS
The distinction between shelving indicators and sublocations is another local choice that you need to make. As far as I’m concerned it’s dictated by how your software works with these two sorting choices— some work better displaying, sorting and reporting by indicator and some by sublocation. The best way you can tell is to see how many reports you can run by sublocation. If you can’t, don’t use sublocations. (I’m side-eyeing you, Destiny.)
Any way, in general:
Shelving indicators are text or numbers that are part of an individual book’s call number and tag. They are usually a word or code that indicates what collection or special collection a book is shelved in. For instance REF, PROF, or GN at the start of a call number are shelving indicators. The lack of a shelving indicator in a library can also dictate where a book goes. So, for instance in a library that uses indicators, a dictionary may be REF 423 WEB, Telgemeier’s Smile GN FIC TEL, and a novel by Pennypacker shelved in general collection Fiction is FIC PEN.
Sublocations indicate what collection or special collection a book is shelved in but are coded as a separate field in your software. Sublocations display in most catalogs as separate from the call number. In general, you don’t include these in the call number field, as it is redundant. You indicate where the book is shelved on the spine with a genre or collection sticker, color dot or other visible marker. So the same three books listed above would be 423 WEB, FIC TEL, and FIC PEN on the call number and spine with the sublocations coded as Reference, Graphic Novels, and Fiction respectively. The reference and graphic novel titles get spine stickers for accurate shelving.
Shelving indicators and sublocations are often used together in libraries to reinforce each other. This is another decision you have to make whenever you are pulling together any kind of subcollection from the general collection. As always with cataloging and classification, the most important key is to set down rules and be consistent.
Because of the explosion in Graphics publishing and collecting over the last 20 years or so, cataloging and classification of them is an emerging and ever changing practice. This allows you to be more creative with your graphics catalog, but it also means a higher amount of time and maintenance needs to go into classifying those titles. Let me know what creative ways you have come up with to balance consistency, time management and accessibility with your graphics. And, as always, feel free to write to me with any questions you may have.