- Email: [email protected]
Comic research libraries
COMIC RESEARCHLIBRARIES
David S. Serchay Comic books, as a genre, have always had an unusual place in libraries. Among other problems, there is no definite rule on how to classify them. However, over the last twenty years, many libraries have developed special collections of comic books. These Comic Research Libraries (CRLs) are found in over fifty university, public, and museum libraries around the world. (For a complete list, see the directory which appears as an Appendix to this article.) Many CRLs also include collections of comic strips, books on the genre, and other comic-related paraphernalia, and often are part of a larger special collection.’ This article will look at fourteen of them, concentrating on the comic book aspect of the collections.
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Serchay is the Youth Services Librarian for the Deerfield Beach branch of the Broward County Library, 837 E. Hillsboro Blvd., Deerfield Beach, FL 33441.
- COMIC RESEARCHLIBRARIES
-
One of the largest collections of comic books in any library belongs to the Library of Congress (LOC), which holds over 100,000 issues, representing over 5,000 titles. The Library’s holdings increase at an average rate of 200 issues per month. The collection runs the entire range of comic books genres and dates back to the 1930s though the holdings are more comprehensive from 1950 to the present. Originally the collection was open to everyone, but due to concerns about the fragility of the material it is now restricted to researchers only (who must wear white gloves). However, the
VOL. 24, No. 1 (SPRING 1998)
37
library also owns color microfiche of comics from the 1930s and 1940s as well as books containing full-color reproductions of comics. Despite having a comic collection for decades due to copyright deposit, the LOC has only recently completed cataloging the individual series. It had been decided that comics were perfect for minimal-level cataloging since they didn’t require classification. The cataloging was done between early 1994 and late 1997, mainly by serials cataloger Marion Davis. During this project, only comics that were actually serials were cataloged. That is, only on-going series, annuals, and any other title with an open-ended run. Limited series, one-shots, graphic novels, and trade paperbacks are considered monographs and eventually will be cataloged as such. When cataloged, the comics were given a genre subject heading along with the other MARC record access points. The headings were supplied both by the catalogers and existing OCLC records. Since the title on the cover is occasionally misleading or temporary, title information was mainly taken from the “indicia,”
A.
PUBLIC CATALOG RECORD
Title: Justice League America. Published: New York, N.Y. : DC Comics, v. : ~011. ill. ; 26 cm. Description: LC Call No.: Comics box 6c Notes: Title from indicia. Control No.: sf 940923 14
B. MARC FORMAT 001 003 005 008 010 035 042 042 050 245 246 260 300 310 350 362 500 780 1987) 850
sf 94092314 DLC 19951012204002.0 Oeng d 0 8909 18u 19899999nyumr p $asf 940923 14 $a (OCoLC) 20361237 $aOCo$cOCo$dDLC $alcd OO$aComics box 6c OO$aJustice League America. lO$aJustice League $aNew York, N.Y. :$bDC Comics, $av. : ~011. ill. ;$c26 cm $aMonthly $a$0 .75 (per issue) $a$12.00 (subscription) 0 $a26 (May 1989) $aTitle from indicia. OO$tJustice League International (New York, N.Y. $w (DLC)sf 95093874 $w (OCoLC) 17008710 $aDLC
Figure 1.
38
Library of Congress Cataloging for “Justice League America.”
SERIALSREVIEW
:
which is usually located on the bottom of the first page of an issue and contains such information as the title, the issue number, the publication date, the publisher, subscription information, etc. To find the beginning publication date, as well as information on series which had changed their name, Davis again used OCLC, as well as The Overstreet Comic Book Companion and Hal Cohen’s OJicial Guide to Comic Books. While the LOC’s online catalog (http://lcweb.loc.gov/catalog) does contain information on each series (see Figure l), individual issues are still recorded manually. If, for example, patrons needed to know if the Library carried Adventure Comics #247 (National (DC) Comics, 1958), they would have to contact or visit the Serials & Newspaper Reading Room reference desk.2,’ ACADEMIC LIBRARIES
Outside of the Library of Congress, the largest and “most ambitious” comic collection is located at Michigan State University (MSU).4 MSU’s Comic Art Collection is part of the Russel B. Nye Popular Collection, and contains over 80,000 comics that have been published in the United States since 1935, 3,000 comic books on microfilm, and over 20,000 foreign comics (giving MSU the largest collection of European comics in any United States library). MSU is also important because it has developed its own classification for comic books, now used by other CRLs. The MSU system is based on the Library of Congress classification schedules and places American comic books in the PN 6728 class. Grouping is then determined by the decade in which a comic began, with a subgrouping by publisher, allowing the shelf list to become “a tool for chronological studies as well as a publisher index to the collection.” For example, PN 6728.1 covers comics from the “Golden Age” (1935-1949), PN 6728.2 covers mainstream books of the 1950s and so forth up through the 1990s (PN 6728.6). Other numbers include PN 6728.15 for the pornographic “eight-pagers” (better known as “Tijuana Bibles”) and PN 6728.45 for “underground comix.” Major cutter numbers for publishers include .D3 for DC Comics, .M3 for Marvel, and .A7 for Archie. The classification numbers are not affected by title changes (as prescribed by Library of Congress guidelines) or even when the publisher changes its name. For example, Superboy (vol 1) began in 1949 and over the years changed its title to Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, Legion of Super-Heroes (vol 2), and Tales of Legion of Super-Heroes, but the call number
- DAVID S. SERCHAY -
remained PN 6728.1 .N3 S77 (the “. 1” because of 1949, and “.N3” since it was published by National, the company that later became DC. Because of this, related comics are not always kept together. For example, Detective Comics, the longest running comic book currently published (1937 -- ) is found under call number PN 6728.1.N3 D4, while Detective Comics Annual (198%-) is under PN 6728.5.D3 D46. Techniques on how other kinds of comics are cataloged can be found in Comic Librarianship: A Handbook, by Randall W. Scott, comics bibliographer for the MSU collection. As with any collection, preservation is very important. MSU, as well as most of the other CRLs, preserves its comics by using supportive and acid free packaging materials, such as mylar bags. Other methods of preservation include making sure that the patrons using the collection have clean hands and do not do anything that may damage the books. Like most CRLs, the majority of MSU’s collection comes from donations. One of their biggest contributors was the now-defunct Eclipse Comics which sent them all of the “exchange copies”
A.
that they received from other companies, as well as their scripts, correspondence, photostats, and offtce copies. More recently Claypool Comics has been doing this on a smaller scale. Donations from other comic readers help to increase the collection, though a large portion of the European collection was purchased from Horst Schroder of Stockholm, Sweden in 1995. While a quarter of the Special Collections budget goes to the comics collection, the funds are used to purchase preservation materials. Another feature of MSU’s collection is that much of its bibliographic apparatus can be accessed online. Its reading room index (www.lib.msu.edu/comics/rri) includes not only cataloging records (which are also available through MSU’s online MAGIC system (see Figure 2) but also transcriptions of the back of the book indexes to books about comics, indexes of periodicals about comics, and indexes of the comics themselves. The latter includes analytic records which provide such information as the writer and artist for an individual
issue. About
ten percent
of the collection
is
ENTRY AS SEEN IN THE MSU LIBRARY CATALOG (http//webz.msu.edu).
Title:
Detective comics. New York, N.Y. :
Place: Publisher:
Detective Comics,
Description: Frequency: Numbering:
v. ~011. ill. ; 26 cm. Monthly Began with no. 1 (March 1937).
Notes: Description based on: no. 26 (April 1939) ; title from cover. Issue 27 (May 1939) marked the first appearance man, feature since then in each issue. Subject: Other:
Superhero comics. -Detective
of Bat-
and mystery comic books, strips, etc.
Batman.
Holdings Location: Spec Co11 Comic Art Call No: PN6728.1 .N3 D4 C. 1 Location: Call No: B.
Spec Co11 Comic Art PN6728.1 .N3 D4 C.2
ENTRY AS SEEN IN THE READING ROOM INDEX.
Detective Comics. -New York : Detective Comics, 1937-. -col. ill. ; 26 cm. - Began with no. 1 (Mar. 1937) , cf. Comic Book Price Guide. - No. 27 (May 1939) included the first appearance of Batman, featured since in each issue. HOLDINGS: no. 26,37,44-49,58,68,96,98, 107-108, 112, 136,188, 194, 196, 198,200,222,224,234,242-243, 245-247,257,259-260,267,275-278,281-287,292-301,306-325,327-335, 337-550,552,554-622.624-657, 659-669 (1939-1993) 1. Detective and mystery comic books, strips, etc. 2. Superhero comics. I. Batman. II. National Periodical tions. III. DC Comics, Inc. Call no.: PN6728.1 .N3D4
Figure 2.
- COMIC RESEARCHLIBRARIES-
Publica-
MSU Cataloging for “Detective Comics.”
VOL. 24, No. 1 (SPRING 1998)
39
represented by an analytic record, with contributions from library staff and from other indexers (such as the members of the Grand Comic Database Project, an ambitious project attempting to index all comics ever published).5 The MSU collection records on OCLC were also a help to Marion Davis when she was cataloging the Library of Congress’s collection. By using cooperative cataloging, she was able to use MSU information to enhance LOC records. Among the data items added were frequency changes, links to earlier and later titles, and notes about publishing gaps.6 MSU is also part of The Consortium of Popular Culture Collections in the Midwest (CPCCM), four Midwestern universities which share a collecting focus in related subject areas, one of which is comic related materiale7 One of the other libraries in the CPCCM is Ohio State T_Jniversity,8which has a Cartoon, Graphic, and Photographic Arts Research Library. While dealing more with comic art, the collection contains over 10,000 comics and follows MSU’s cataloging procedure. According to its curator, Lucy Shetlon Caswell, OSU’s collection attempts to have representative examples of the various genres of comic books. The exception to this is the works of comics individuals, such as comics great Will Eisner, whose papers are held there. In that case, the library is attempting to collect all of their comic book work. OSU’s Cartoon Research Library recently received approximately 150,000 pounds of materials from The San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, giving OSU the largest collection of original cartoon art and the largest collection of comic tear sheets and clipping files in the United States. A third member of the CPCCM is Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio.’ The Robert S. Bravard collection of comic books is part of the overall Popular Culture Library and consists of over 50,000 issues. This is mainly in “paper” form, with some microfiche reprints of Golden Age series. Like the others, the collection is open to the general public, though often with staff supervision. Preservation techniques are the same as the other libraries, and new acquisitions come through gifts, with the budget for the collection (about ten percent of the annual supply budget) going toward supplies for the comics and other materials. The Bravard collection also includes fanzines and other comic related miscellany, including a Ray Bradbury collection that contains rare material connected to comic book adaptations of his work. The comic collection is only cataloged through an in-house finding aid, but Head Librarian Alison M. Scott hopes to soon have it join the rest of the collection on OCLC. A cataloger
40
SERIALSREVIEW
has been hired, and work will begin later this year. Kent State University, the fourth member of the CPCCM, has a small comic collection of about 125 books, including some from the Golden Age and some Spanish Language comics. Another library that keeps its comic books in a popular culture collection is The Hillman Library at the University of Pittsburgh.” The Archive of Popular Culture is part of the Special Collections Department, and was established in 1974. Besides a collection of over 2,000 paperback science fiction novels, and a collection of fanzines and pulp magazines, the Archives also contain over 16,000 comic books, mostly from the Golden Age period (1930s and 1940s). The bulk of the comics collection, as well as some other items in the collection, was donated to the library by the Pittsburgh Comix Club and has been enhanced over time by individual gifts. The Library does not actively purchase comic books. Issues in the Archives collection are arranged in random order as they arrive, but they are controlled through an extensive item inventory. For storage, the comics are placed, usually two together, into an acid free folder, which is then placed in a document case. While the collection is open to anyone, it can only be accessed via the special collections department, and then only with advance notice. Two collections in the Midwest that are not part of the CPCCM are Northwestern University and Indiana University. Northwestern’s’ ’ collection consists of about 18,000 comics, as well as 100 Big Little Books which are “hardback comics,” about 4x4 inches and 1.5 inches thick and generally printed on low quality paper. The organization is alphabetical, with “the numbers of the items held on the back of each card.” Preservation is maintained with the use of plastic and/or mylar bags, and the books are located in environmentally controlled stacks. The collection at Indiana University’s Lilly Library I2 contains about 1,000 different titles, with generally one to three issues per title (though they do have comprehensive holdings for a few titles). They utilize an in-house catalog for the comics, which are organized by LC classification and cuttered by title. The comics are housed in acid-free sleeves, folders, and/or boxes. Both libraries allow public access to the collection (under usual “rare books” rules) and both get their comics through donations and still add to the collections. Of course not all CRLs activeiy build their collections. For example, the special collections area of the University of Chicago’s (UC) Joseph Regenstein Library I3holds a collection of only about 2,150 comic
-DAVID S. SERCHAY-
books, published between 1949 and 1959, that were donated by UC alumnus Walter C. Dopierala in 1973. The collection is housed in forty-five Hollinger boxes and is stored and listed by genre (comedy-fantasy, adventure, westerns, super-heroes, and a near complete run of Classics Illustrated), with an additional index of characters. Some collections are dedicated to only a certain area of comics or to a certain individual. The major comic collection of Iowa State University’s collection, 14 which is part of their Rare Book Collection, is The Underground Comix collection. Underground Comix began in the late 1960s and often contained adult themes, references to drug use, and other counter-culture elements. The Iowa State collection consists of almost 3,600 issues from 1,455 titles and was started after a sizable gift was donated in the early 1970s. The collection, which contains such bizarre titles as Bicentennial Gross-Outs, Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary, From the Files of the Alienated War Baby Report, A Plain Talk with Puerto Ricans about Things in General, Amputee Love, Mickey Rat, GJDRKZLXCBWQ, and the most famous underground book, Zap, was enhanced by further donations until 1991. The Comix are stored in hanging files in alphabetical order, in climate controlled areas, and are separated by their sizes-standard, oversize, and undersize. The collection is listed only in a card index, though a backlog of several hundred comix has recently been indexed and filed. In addition, ISU’s public catalog (ICAT) contains a group record describing the collection as a whole. ICAT users will also retrieve the group record by searching for one of the eighteen titles or twelve authors as a keyword. Also included in the rare books collection is a small number of comic books published by EC Comics in the early 1950s. The collection includes such noted titles as Tales from the Crypt, Weird Fantasy, and Two-Fisted Tales, books that were innovative in both story and art, until the rise of the Comics Code in the mid-1950s resulted in their cancellation (ironically, the code also helped to give rise to the Underground Comix movement). Unlike the Underground collection, the EC books are fully cataloged as serials on the ICAT database (see Figure 3). Despite this, neither the EC or the Underground collection have been requested by the public for some time. Another closed collection is the E. Nelson Bridwell Collection in the Special Collections area of The University of Tulsa’s McFarlin Library.” The collection includes several hundred comics written andfor edited
- COMICRESEARCH LIBRARIES -
between 1943-1987 by the late E. Nelson Bridwell, an Oklahoma native. The collection, which was donated by Bridwell’s aunt in 1989, is housed in thirteen document boxes and the comics are arranged alphabetically by title, with each title then arranged by date and number. Title changes are not acknowledged and changed titles, such as Superboy and Legion of Super-heroes, are kept in separate boxes according to title. The collection, which also includes some of Bridwell’s personal items and articles about him, is open to the public (under special collection rules). The library also has a microfilm collection of about 150 comic titles from the 1940s. Lists of both collections can be found by going to http://www.lib.utulsa.edu/speccoll/speccoll.htm and clicking on the Literary Manuscripts Collections Individual Guides. Other collections from people in the industry include Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Harry “A” Chesler Collection and The University of Oregon’s Gardner Fox collection. A California-based comic library is the University of California-Riverside (UCR),16 whose comics are in the J. Lloyd Eaton Collection of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Utopia. Besides having over 65,000 volumes of SF/Fantasy/horror literature, 45,000 fanzines, thousands of issues of genre magazines, and the literary papers of several noted authors, the Eaton collection also contains between 65,000 and 70,000 issues of comic books from that genre, including a large number that were recently donated. The three major donations are: The Edwin Casebeer collection of around 15,000 issues from the 1950s to early 1980s which has been processed but not cataloged; the Bruce Pelz collection which is currently in ninety long banker’s boxes with thirty-five more to be added next year and is currently being sifted and sorted; and the Frank Como collection which will remain in 130 long banker’s boxes until the library building is retrofitted. The books that were previously in the collection are arranged by title and for protection have been placed in archival mylar sleeves, with many also having archival backing boards. The collection is accessible to anyone and is frequently used by UCR students. One of the newest major comic book collections in a university library is the Michael J. Ciaraldi collection at Brown University. ’ 7 Ciaraldi decided to donate his collection when he moved from Rochester, New York to Acton, Massachusetts in 1996 and found that his collection, which after twenty-five years came to over 60,000 issues, tilled 255 cardboard cartons and weighed about three tons, was too big for his house. Plus, it was so unorganized that he could never find
VOL.
24, No. 1 (SPRING 1998)
41
A.
PUBLIC CATALOG RECORD FROM ICAT CATALOG (http://www.iastate.edu/scholar/db/icat.html)
Title:
Weird Science.
Published: VOL. 1, NO. 12 (MAY/JUNE 22 (NOV.?DEC. 1953) // Subjects:
SCIENCE FICTION,
Notes: CONTINUES: ENCE-FANTASY. . Other titles:
1950) -V. 1 NO. 15 (Sept./OCT.
AMERICAN
1950) ; V. 1, NO. 5 (NOV./DEC.
1950) -V. 1, NO.
-PERIODICALS
SADDLE ROMANCES.
MERGED WITH:
WEIRD FANTASY, TO BECOME:
WEIRD SCI-
SADDLE ROMANCES
Location/Call Number/Status: PARKS LIBRARY Special Collections Call Number: PS648.S3 ,W44X Not available Circ. info not available
B.
MARC FORMAT
001 0
008810522d19501953nyubrp 035
$a adp73 10400
049
$a IWAK $v
050 0
$a PS648.S3 $b .W44X
24500
$a WEIRD SCIENCE.
247 11
$a SADDLE ROMANCES
(1)
$Y
650 0
Oeng
1952-1953
3620 $a VOL. 1, NO. 12 (MAY/JUNE 22 (NOV./DEC. 1953) // $a CONTINUES: 500 ENCE-FANTASY.
0
AMERICAN
Figure 3.
$n
1950) -V. 1, NO. 15 (SEPT./OCT.
SADDLE ROMANCES.
$a SCIENCE FICTION,
u
1950) ; V. 1, NO. 5 (NOV./DEC. 1950) -V. 1, NO.
MERGED WITH: WEIRD FANTASY, TO BECOME:
WEIRD SCI-
$X PERIODICALS.
Iowa State University Cataloging for “Weird Science.”
what he needed. As he could not bear to have his col-
to his new home, and as they did not have a comics
lection broken up and sold, he posted messages on the Usenet comics and library-themed newsgroups offering his collection. The ideal library for him would do the following: (1) It would create an inventory and arrange to have the collection appraised for IRS purposes; (2) It would be willing to preserve and protect the items and make them accessible for the enjoyment and education of scholars and the general public and not sell it off (except for duplicates); (3) It would be willing to reimburse him for shipping costs or arrange to pick up the comics; (4) It would be located relatively close to Boston, Massachusetts, in case he ever wanted to read some of them again; and (5) It would be willing to designate them as the Michael J. Ciaraldi Collection (the last two criteria were optional). Originally, Ciaraldi was going to donate the collection to Words & Pictures Museum in Northampton, Massachusetts. This worked for him, since it was close
library, the collection would be useful right away. Unfortunately, this plan did not work out because the Museum could not fit the collection into its building and did not have the staff to catalog it. Ciaraldi went back to the newsgroups and in late 1996 decided to donate the collection to Brown’s John Hay Library. The Library had the necessary staff and space, was open to the general public, and was only about an hour away. The collection is being donated in installments, with the first, comprised of 6,388 issues (from 2,225 titles) donated last year. The collection covers a large range of genres, formats, and topics, including hundreds of graphic novels, and is filed by title. The comics are currently stored in acid-free Hollinger boxes, with plans to put the individual issues into mylar sleeves. The collection has been sorted and inventoried, and manual records for each title are available.
42
SERIALSREVIEW
-DAVIDS.SERCHAY-
The Ciaraldi collection isn’t the only comics collection in the Hay Library. For the past five years, the Library has held the Wayne D. Poulin Collection of comics which was donated by Brown Professor Barton St. Armand, in memory of a deceased relative, the original collector. The Poulin collection is made up of about 10,000 issues, is housed in three-foot comic storage boxes (with the issues in mylar sleeves), and is filed by title. The Library has created a title database, but there is no official catalog or Web access at the moment. There are no plans to merge the two collections. The Hay Library also contains other collections, including the Miller Collection of Wit and Humor, which includes various kinds of comic strips and cartoons. PUBLIC AND SPECIAL LIBRARIES
Not all CRLs in America are academic libraries. The New York Public Library’s Center for the Humanities’* also collects comics. Most of its cataloged collection is made up of microform reproductions, such as a complete run of selected 1939-1956 titles and a 1956- 1988 collection. The latter consists of two components: a 1959 donation of 200 comics; and beginning in 1965, an annual sampling of various comic book genres on sale at news stands or comic shops. Once per year, an NYPL librarian would purchase a representative sample of titles, including cartoon, television, moving picture, adventure, and romantic comics, and the acquisitions would then be filmed by the Library. This practice was discontinued in 1988. The 1939-1956 collection is reproduced on color microfiche and all titles are fully cataloged. The 1956-1988 collection appears on black and white microfilm and a catalog for it is forthcoming. In addition, the NYPL has over 10,000 uncataloged paper comics, which are currently being sorted, collated, stamped, and shelved by title. Eventually they will be cataloged, classified, and shelved by call number, but at the moment such enhanced treatment is being reserved for graphic novels, monographs, and reprint collections. Unlike other CRLs, NYPL does not keep the comics in plastic sleeves, but instead stores them flat in 15 l/2 x 10 l/2” Gaylord acid-free clamshell boxes, located in a locked cage in air-conditioned stacks. As with other CRLs, the paper collection comes from a number of large donations (as well as one private purchase). Since the materials are not yet cataloged, the paper comics are not available to the general public. Once cataloged, access will be provided under the usual rare book/special collection rules.
-COMIC RESEARCH LCBRARIES-
Other American library collections include California State University, Syracuse University, and UCLA. Non-university library collections in the US include the Smithsonian Institution Library, the Walt Disney Archives, and the International Museum of Cartoon Art in Boca Raton, Florida. FOREIGN LIBRARIES
A number of international libraries have comic collections, including the University of Sydney in Australia. I9 The comic collection, which currently includes over 16,000 issues, began as part of the Ron Graham Collection of Science Fiction and has been enhanced, thanks to the donations of collectors throughout Australia, since Graham’s death in 1978. The comics are arranged by title (about 12,000 titles) and are preserved by being placed in pH neutral mylar Ziplock bags and stored in archival pamphlet boxes. A complete listing is available in a printed index, which will eventually be copied into an archival database to be placed on the library’s home page. Ironically, despite being an Australian library, only about five percent of the books are from Australia, the vast majority being from America. The only major collection of Australian comics in the public domain can be found at The National Library of Australia in Canberra. Other major international collections include: The Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinee in Brussels, Belgium, the central collection in Europe; The College de Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada, home of the largest and most complete collection of European comics in North America; Maison d’Ailleurs in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland, which contains the “definitive collection of French science fiction,” including science fiction comics; The Victoria and Albert Museum’s National Art Library, in London,20 which contains several archives and collection about comic books and strips, including the “Krazy Kat Arkive” of Twentieth Century Popular Culture, with holdings of over 4,200 comic books from around the world; and Det Kuloerte Bibliotek in Koebenhavn, Denmark, which maintains a collection of comics strictly for study purposes, though all of Denmark’s approximately 400 public libraries also have comic collections. CONCLUSION
Comic books have been gaining a growing reputation as being more than just “kiddie books.” The acclaim VOL. 24, No. 1 (SPRING 1998) 43
given recent works like Marvels, Sandman, and the Pulitzer Prize winning MUMS:A Survivor’s Tale, have helped them to be recognized as both art and literary forms, worthy of study. As academic interest grows, it will be the Comic Research Libraries that provide scholars and collectors with the information that they will need. APPENDIX: DIRECTORYOF NOTABLE COMIC RESEARCHLIBRARIES COMPILED BY DAVID S. SERCHAY
This information comes from Randall Scott’s list of Comic Research Libraries located at http:// www.lib.msu.edu/comics/director/comres.htm. Libraries on the Scott list that contain comic strips and comic art but not comic books have been excluded here. An asterisk indicates that the library has been described in depth in this article. UNIVERSITYLIBRARIESIN NORTHAMERICA
*Bowling Green State University Contact: Librarian, Popular Culture Library, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio 43403.419-372-2450. Holdings: Over 36,000 comic books, and comic related items including Big Little Books, fanzines, pulps, and trading Cards. *Brown University Contact: Curator of the Harris Collection, The John Hay Library, Box A, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912.401-863-1514. Holdings: At least 17,000 comics, with more being added thanks to the donation by Michael Ciaraldi. The collection should eventually reach over 75,000 issues. California State University, Fullerton Contact: Archivist, Archive of Popular Culture, California State University Library, Box 4150, Fullerton, California 92634. 714-773-3444. Holdings: Roughly 2,000 comic books. Fairleigh Dickinson University Contact: Curator of Special Collections, The Harry “A” Chesler Collection of Illustration and Comic
44
SERIALSREVIEW
Art, Fairleigh Dickinson University Library, Madison, New Jersey 07940. 201-377-4700. Holdings: Some comic books, but mainly original comics art with books of supporting material. *Indiana University Contact: Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405. 812-335-2452. Holdings: About 1,000 comics. *Iowa State University Contact: Department of Special Collections, The Parks Library, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011.515-294-6672. Holdings: One of the best collections of underground and new wave comix. As well as over eighty E.C. comic books. Kent State University Contact: Kent State University. Library, Special Collections and Archives. Kent, Ohio, 44242. 2 16-672-2270. Holdings: 125 comic books including some in Spanish. Lock Haven University Contact: University Archivist, Archives and Records Centre, Stevenson Library Building, Lock Haven University, Lock Haven, Pennsylvania 17745. 717-893-2371. Holdings: 700 comic books from the late 196Os/ early 1970s. *Michigan State University Contact: Comic Art Collection, Michigan State University Libraries, East Lansing, Michigan 48824- 1048.5 17-355-3770. Holdings: Largest University Collection in the U.S. Over 118,000 comics, including more than 20,000 foreign comics. Also has over 3,000 microfilmed comics and over 10,000 items about comics. *Northwestern University Contact: Northwestern University Library, Special Collections Department, 1937 Sheridan Rd., Evanston, Illinois 60208-2300.708-49 l-3635. Holdings: 18,000 comics, plus Books.
100 Big Little
- DAVID S.SERCHAY -
*Ohio State University Contact: Cartoon Research Library, 27 West 17th Ave. Mall, Wexner Center for the Visual Arts, Ohio 43210. Room 023L, Columbus, 614-292-0538.
University of Kansas Contact: Spencer Librarian, Department of Special Collections, Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045.913-864-4334.
Holdings: 10,000 comic books, but mainly concentrates on cartoon art.
University of Kentucky Contact: Special Collections, Margaret I. King Library, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40506. 606-257-8611.
Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville Contact: Rare Book Librarian, Lovejoy Library, SIU, Edwardsville, Illinois 62026.618-692-2665. Holdings: 1,500 comic books. Syracuse University Contact: George Arents Research Library, 600 Bird Library, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13244-2010.3 15-423-2585 Holdings: Mainly pulp fiction and some comic strip art, but the Street & Smith archives contain S&S comic books. University of California, Los Angeles Contact: Special Collections, UCLA University Library, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90024. 213- 825-4988. Holdings: An “extensive” collection that includes a collection of first issues. *University of California, Riverside Contact: Eaton Collection, Dept of Special Collections, Tomas Rivera Library, University of California, Riverside, California 92521. 909-787-3233. Holdings: Several thousand comic books, including over 1,000 French comics, as part of the Eaton Collection of science fiction. *University of Chicago Contact: Curator of Special Collections, Joseph Regenstein Library, 1100 E. 57th St., Chicago, Illinois 60637. 3 12-702-8705. Holdings: 2,150 comic books published between 1949 and 1959. University of Connecticut Contact: Alternative Press Collection, Special Collections, Homer Babbidge Library, University of Connecticut, Storm, Connecticut 06268. 203-486-2524. Holdings: 150 underground comix.
- COMIC RESEARCHLIBRARIES-
Holdings: 500 Big Little Books
Holdings: “Some” comics as well as fanzines. University of Louisville Library Contact: University of Louisville Library. Rare Books and Special Collections, Louisville, Kentucky 40292. 502-588-6762. Holdings: The Edgar Rice Burroughs Collection contains some Burroughs related comic books. University of Maryland Baltimore County Contact: Special Collections Librarian, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Catonsville, Maryland 21228. 301-455-2353. Holdings: 1,000 comic books including an extensive underground collection. University of Minnesota Contact: Curator, Children’s Literature Research Collections, 109 Walter Library, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455. 6 12-624-4576. Holdings: 1,200 comic books and 500 Big Little Books as part of the Children’s Research Collections. University of Missouri-Columbia Contact: Special Collections Librarian, 402 Ellis Library, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, Missouri 65201-5149. Holdings: 300 underground comix and a large number of comics reprint books. University of New Brunswick Contact: Curator, Science Fiction and Fantasy Collection, Ward Chipman Library, University of New Brunswick, P.O. Box 5050, Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada E2L 4L5. 506-648-5700. Holdings: Some comic books included. University of Oregon Contact: Curator of Special Collections, University of Oregon Library, Eugene, Oregon 97403. 503-686-3068.
VOL. 24, No. 1 (SPRING 1998) 45
Holdings: The Gardner Fox collection includes not only comics that Fox worked on, but his papers as well. University of Pittsburgh Contact: Coordinator, Special Collections, 363 Hillman Library, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260.412-624-4428. Holdings: 8,500 comic books, plus fanzines and some Big Little Books. *University of Tulsa Contact: Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa, 600 S. College Ave., Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104.918-631-2496. Holdings: Contains both the E. Nelson Bridwell Collection and a number of Golden Age comics on microfilm. Washington State University Contact: Curator, Modern Literary Collections, Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Library, Pullman, Washington 99164-5610.509-335-5517. Holdings: The Counter-Culture Comix collection holds about 2,500 underground, new wave, and self-published mini-comics OTHERNORTHAMERICANCOLLECTIONS The Cartoon Art Museum Contact: Administrator, Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Third Street., San Francisco, California 94107. 415-546-3922. Holdings: Comic book pages and covers, and may or may not have actual comic books. College De Sherbrooke Contact: Information Center on Comics, College de Sherbrooke, 475 Part St., Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada JlH 5M7. Holdings: Largest and most complete collection of European comic in North America, as well as some American comic books. Comic Research Library Contact: Curator, Comic Research Library, Tappen, British Columbia, Canada VOE 2X0.604-835-8529. Holdings: A private collection that includes over 1,000 comic books and a large number of Big Little Books, as well as hundreds of books on comics.
46
SERIALSREVIEW
International Museum of Cartoon Art Contact: International Museum of Cartoon Art, 201 Plaza Real Boca Raton, Florida 33429. 561-391-2200. Holdings: Big Little Books, Foreign Comics, underground comix and more. However the library area for the new Museum has yet to be constructed. *Library of Congress Contact: Head, Periodical Section, Serial and Government Publications, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20015. 202-707-5467. Holdings: 100,000 comics, a large number of which have been cataloged. National Archives of Canada Contact: Chief, Art Acquisition and Research, Documentary Art and Photography Division, National Archives of Canada, 395 Wellington St., Ottawa, Ontario KlA ON3.613-996-7766. Holdings: Over 2,000 comics published in Canada. *New York Public Library Contact: Librarian, Rare Book and Manuscript Division, New York Public Library, Fifth Ave. and 42nd Street, New York, New York 10018. 212-930-0801. Holdings: Over 10,000 comic books as well as a large number of comics on microfilm. The San Francisco Academy of Comic Art Contact: San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, 2850 Ulloa St., San Francisco, California 94116. 415-681-1737. Holdings: emphasizes comic strips (over 4.5 million), but also holds several thousand comic books. Smithsonian Institution Libraries Contact: Chief, Special Collections, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian InstituWashington, DC 20560. tion Libraries, 202-357-1568. Holdings: Despite having its name on two comic reprint collections, the Smithsonian only has a small amount of actual comic books, including thirteen bound volumes of 1940s comics featuring Wonder Woman. Walt Disney Archives Contact: Archivist, Walt Disney Archives, 500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, California 91521. 8 18-840-5424.
- DAVID S. SERCHAY -
Holdings: Complete set of United States and most foreign Disney comic books. FOREIGNCOLLECTIONS Det Kuloerte Bibliotek Contact: Librarian, Det Kuloerte Bibliotek, Krystalgade 15, Koebenhavn, Denmark. Phone: (45) 3393 6060. Holdings: A comics collection strictly for study purposes. Maison d’ Ailleurs Contact: Maison d' Ailleurs. Case postale 3181, CH- 1401 Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland. Phone: 24 21 6438. Holdings: large science fiction collection includes science fiction comic books.
that
National Library of Australia Contact: Manuscripts Librarian, National Library of Australia, Canberra, ACT 2660 Australia. Holdings: The John Ryan collection is the only major collection of Australian comics in the public domain. *University of Sydney Contact: University of Sydney Library. Rare Books and Special Collections, Sydney, N.S.W. Australia 2006. 02/692-2992. Holdings: Over 12,000 comic books, mainly from the United States. Victoria and Albert Museum Contact: National Art Library, Victoria & Albert Museum, South Kensington, London SW72RL, United Kingdom. Phone: 171 9388500. Holdings: “Krazy Kat Archive” for contemporary popular imagery; plus Rakoff Collection of Comics, with 21,000 items. NOTESANDREFERENCES 1. Much of the information in this paper on the libraries came in part from “Comic Research Libraries as of July 1993 (with some corrections and improvements as of April 1997) by Randall W. Scott found at http://lib.msu.edu/comics/ director/comres.htm 2. Information on the Library of Congress’s comic book collection comes from the following sources: The LOC’s
- COMIC RESEARCHLIBRARIES-
“Comic Book Collection” Web page at http://lcweb.loc.gov/ spcolV049.html ; “Serial Record Catalogs Comics” by Jean Hirons in The Gazette, A Weekly Newspaperfijr the Library Stafs; e-mail between Marion A. Davis of the LOC and Robert Klein from December 18, 1997, reposted on the Grand Comic-book Database Project Listserv; and e-mail correspondence from Davis to myself, January, 1998. 3. The Serials & Newspaper Reading Room is located in Room LM- 133 in the James Madison Memorial Building (entrance on Independence Avenue, between First and Second Streets, S.E.) in Washington DC. The phone number is 202-707-5690. 4. Information on Michigan State University Comes from the following sources: e-mail correspondence with Randall W. Scott, October, 1996; Comics Librarianship: A Handhook by Randall W. Scott, McFarland and Co. 1990; visits to the various comic-related Web sites at MSU (http:// www.lib.msu.edu/comics/); “The Comic Art Collection,” a pamphlet from MSU’s Special Collections Divisions, and the MSU Webz Magic catalog (http://webz.msu.edu). 5. For more information on the Grand Comic-book base Project (GCD), go to http://www.nostromo.no/gcd/
Data-
6. E-mail from Marion A. Davis, January, 1998. Ms. Davis also used the GCD to help her with her cataloging by reading their discussion list, which gave her helpful information and “helped [her] to feel that [her] work was making the LC comic collection more accessible to people who would appreciate it.” 7. Pamphlet entitled “Consortium lections in the Midwest.”
of Popular Culture Col-
8. Information on OSU comes from e-mail correspondence with Lucy Caswell, Curator of the OSU Cartoon Research library, in October, 1996 and January, 1998. Ms. Caswell is the editor of the journal INKS: Cartoon and Comic Art Studies. 9. Information on BGSU comes from e-mail correspondence with Alison Scott, Head Librarian of the Popular Culture Collection, in October, 1996 and January 1998. Additional information on the Popular Culture Library can be found at http://www.bgsu.edu/colleges/library/pcl/ pcl2.html 10. Information comes from the following sources: e-mail correspondence with Charles Aston Jr, head of the Special Collections Department and Humanities Libraries Cluster, Hillman Library, on January 16, 1998; and the Special Colat http:Ilwww.pitt.edu/-aspworkl lections Web page spcol.html 1I. Information on Northwestern comes from e-mail correspondence with R. Russell Maylone, Curator of McCormick Library of Special Collections, on October 2 1, 1996.
VOL. 24, No. 1 (SPRING1998)
47
12. Information on Indiana University comes from e-mail correspondence with Becky Cape of the Lilly Library on October 22, 1996. The URL for the Lilly Library (though not the comic book collection) is http:Nwww.indiana.edu/-liblilly 13. Information on the University of Chicago comes from e-mail correspondence with Alice Schreyer on October 9, 1996. Information on UC’s Special Collections can be found at http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/LibInfo/Libraries/SpCll 14. Information on ISU comes from the following sources: e-mail correspondence with Becky Jordan in October, 1996 and January, 1998; ISU Library Special Collections Department General Information Web page (note: page no longer exists); The ISU Library ICAT on-line catalog system (http:/ “Culture/ /www.lib.iastate.edu/scholar/db/icat.html); Counter Culture” Past and Present,” an exhibit catalog done for the department in I98 1; and a 1980 listing of Underground Comix held by the Special Collections Department. Information on the ISU Special Collections Department can be found at http://lib.iastate.edu/spcl/spcl.html 15. Information on the University of Tulsa comes from the following sources: e-mail correspondence with Sid Hutter of the McFarlin Library Department of Special Collections, and the gopher site for the E. Nelson Bridwell Collection, accessible via http://www.lib.utulsa.edu/speccoll/speccoll.htm
George Slusser, February 12, 1998; and the Eaton Collection Web page at http:/Aib-www.ucr.edu/spec_coll/eaton.html. 17. Information on Brown comes from the following: e-Mail correspondence from Rosemary L. Cullen, Head Special Collections Librarian, John Hay Library, on January 16, 1998; a press release on the Ciaraldi collection; the Web page of Michael Ciaraldi that deals with his donation (http:// www.ultranet.co/-ciaraldi/comics.html); post by Ciaraldi on the rec.arts.comics.info newsgroup on August 9, 1996; and “Comic Books Go to the Ivy League” by Joann Loviglio, written for the Associated Press on August 3, 1997. 18. Information on the New York Public Library comes from e-mail correspondence with Alice Dowd in October, 1996 and January 1998, and “Comic Books: A Research Guide” located at http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/grd/ resguides/comix.html 19. Information on the University of Sydney comes from e-mail correspondence with Neil Boness, Rare Books and Special Collections Librarian, in October, 1996 and January, 1998. Information on US’s Rare Books collection can be found at http:Nwww.library/usyd.edu.au/Services/Libraries/ Rare/index. html 20. The National Art Library “Comics in the National Art Library” page at http://nal.vam.ac.ukalcomic.html
16. Information on UC-Riverside comes from e-mail correspondence from Sid Berger on Jan. 26, 1998; e-mail from
48
SERIALSREVIEW
- DAVID S. SERCHAY -
David S. Serchay Comic books, as a genre, have always had an unusual place in libraries. Among other problems, there is no definite rule on how to classify them. However, over the last twenty years, many libraries have developed special collections of comic books. These Comic Research Libraries (CRLs) are found in over fifty university, public, and museum libraries around the world. (For a complete list, see the directory which appears as an Appendix to this article.) Many CRLs also include collections of comic strips, books on the genre, and other comic-related paraphernalia, and often are part of a larger special collection.’ This article will look at fourteen of them, concentrating on the comic book aspect of the collections.
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS
Serchay is the Youth Services Librarian for the Deerfield Beach branch of the Broward County Library, 837 E. Hillsboro Blvd., Deerfield Beach, FL 33441
- COMIC RESEARCHLIBRARIES
-
One of the largest collections of comic books in any library belongs to the Library of Congress (LOC), which holds over 100,000 issues, representing over 5,000 titles. The Library’s holdings increase at an average rate of 200 issues per month. The collection runs the entire range of comic books genres and dates back to the 1930s though the holdings are more comprehensive from 1950 to the present. Originally the collection was open to everyone, but due to concerns about the fragility of the material it is now restricted to researchers only (who must wear white gloves). However, the
VOL. 24, No. 1 (SPRING 1998)
37
library also owns color microfiche of comics from the 1930s and 1940s as well as books containing full-color reproductions of comics. Despite having a comic collection for decades due to copyright deposit, the LOC has only recently completed cataloging the individual series. It had been decided that comics were perfect for minimal-level cataloging since they didn’t require classification. The cataloging was done between early 1994 and late 1997, mainly by serials cataloger Marion Davis. During this project, only comics that were actually serials were cataloged. That is, only on-going series, annuals, and any other title with an open-ended run. Limited series, one-shots, graphic novels, and trade paperbacks are considered monographs and eventually will be cataloged as such. When cataloged, the comics were given a genre subject heading along with the other MARC record access points. The headings were supplied both by the catalogers and existing OCLC records. Since the title on the cover is occasionally misleading or temporary, title information was mainly taken from the “indicia,”
A.
PUBLIC CATALOG RECORD
Title: Justice League America. Published: New York, N.Y. : DC Comics, v. : ~011. ill. ; 26 cm. Description: LC Call No.: Comics box 6c Notes: Title from indicia. Control No.: sf 940923 14
B. MARC FORMAT 001 003 005 008 010 035 042 042 050 245 246 260 300 310 350 362 500 780 1987) 850
sf 94092314 DLC 19951012204002.0 Oeng d 0 8909 18u 19899999nyumr p $asf 940923 14 $a (OCoLC) 20361237 $aOCo$cOCo$dDLC $alcd OO$aComics box 6c OO$aJustice League America. lO$aJustice League $aNew York, N.Y. :$bDC Comics, $av. : ~011. ill. ;$c26 cm $aMonthly $a$0 .75 (per issue) $a$12.00 (subscription) 0 $a26 (May 1989) $aTitle from indicia. OO$tJustice League International (New York, N.Y. $w (DLC)sf 95093874 $w (OCoLC) 17008710 $aDLC
Figure 1.
38
Library of Congress Cataloging for “Justice League America.”
SERIALSREVIEW
:
which is usually located on the bottom of the first page of an issue and contains such information as the title, the issue number, the publication date, the publisher, subscription information, etc. To find the beginning publication date, as well as information on series which had changed their name, Davis again used OCLC, as well as The Overstreet Comic Book Companion and Hal Cohen’s OJicial Guide to Comic Books. While the LOC’s online catalog (http://lcweb.loc.gov/catalog) does contain information on each series (see Figure l), individual issues are still recorded manually. If, for example, patrons needed to know if the Library carried Adventure Comics #247 (National (DC) Comics, 1958), they would have to contact or visit the Serials & Newspaper Reading Room reference desk.2,’ ACADEMIC LIBRARIES
Outside of the Library of Congress, the largest and “most ambitious” comic collection is located at Michigan State University (MSU).4 MSU’s Comic Art Collection is part of the Russel B. Nye Popular Collection, and contains over 80,000 comics that have been published in the United States since 1935, 3,000 comic books on microfilm, and over 20,000 foreign comics (giving MSU the largest collection of European comics in any United States library). MSU is also important because it has developed its own classification for comic books, now used by other CRLs. The MSU system is based on the Library of Congress classification schedules and places American comic books in the PN 6728 class. Grouping is then determined by the decade in which a comic began, with a subgrouping by publisher, allowing the shelf list to become “a tool for chronological studies as well as a publisher index to the collection.” For example, PN 6728.1 covers comics from the “Golden Age” (1935-1949), PN 6728.2 covers mainstream books of the 1950s and so forth up through the 1990s (PN 6728.6). Other numbers include PN 6728.15 for the pornographic “eight-pagers” (better known as “Tijuana Bibles”) and PN 6728.45 for “underground comix.” Major cutter numbers for publishers include .D3 for DC Comics, .M3 for Marvel, and .A7 for Archie. The classification numbers are not affected by title changes (as prescribed by Library of Congress guidelines) or even when the publisher changes its name. For example, Superboy (vol 1) began in 1949 and over the years changed its title to Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, Legion of Super-Heroes (vol 2), and Tales of Legion of Super-Heroes, but the call number
- DAVID S. SERCHAY -
remained PN 6728.1 .N3 S77 (the “. 1” because of 1949, and “.N3” since it was published by National, the company that later became DC. Because of this, related comics are not always kept together. For example, Detective Comics, the longest running comic book currently published (1937 -- ) is found under call number PN 6728.1.N3 D4, while Detective Comics Annual (198%-) is under PN 6728.5.D3 D46. Techniques on how other kinds of comics are cataloged can be found in Comic Librarianship: A Handbook, by Randall W. Scott, comics bibliographer for the MSU collection. As with any collection, preservation is very important. MSU, as well as most of the other CRLs, preserves its comics by using supportive and acid free packaging materials, such as mylar bags. Other methods of preservation include making sure that the patrons using the collection have clean hands and do not do anything that may damage the books. Like most CRLs, the majority of MSU’s collection comes from donations. One of their biggest contributors was the now-defunct Eclipse Comics which sent them all of the “exchange copies”
A.
that they received from other companies, as well as their scripts, correspondence, photostats, and offtce copies. More recently Claypool Comics has been doing this on a smaller scale. Donations from other comic readers help to increase the collection, though a large portion of the European collection was purchased from Horst Schroder of Stockholm, Sweden in 1995. While a quarter of the Special Collections budget goes to the comics collection, the funds are used to purchase preservation materials. Another feature of MSU’s collection is that much of its bibliographic apparatus can be accessed online. Its reading room index (www.lib.msu.edu/comics/rri) includes not only cataloging records (which are also available through MSU’s online MAGIC system (see Figure 2) but also transcriptions of the back of the book indexes to books about comics, indexes of periodicals about comics, and indexes of the comics themselves. The latter includes analytic records which provide such information as the writer and artist for an individual
issue. About
ten percent
of the collection
is
ENTRY AS SEEN IN THE MSU LIBRARY CATALOG (http//webz.msu.edu).
Title:
Detective comics. New York, N.Y. :
Place: Publisher:
Detective Comics,
Description: Frequency: Numbering:
v. ~011. ill. ; 26 cm. Monthly Began with no. 1 (March 1937).
Notes: Description based on: no. 26 (April 1939) ; title from cover. Issue 27 (May 1939) marked the first appearance man, feature since then in each issue. Subject: Other:
Superhero comics. -Detective
of Bat-
and mystery comic books, strips, etc.
Batman.
Holdings Location: Spec Co11 Comic Art Call No: PN6728.1 .N3 D4 C. 1 Location: Call No: B.
Spec Co11 Comic Art PN6728.1 .N3 D4 C.2
ENTRY AS SEEN IN THE READING ROOM INDEX.
Detective Comics. -New York : Detective Comics, 1937-. -col. ill. ; 26 cm. - Began with no. 1 (Mar. 1937) , cf. Comic Book Price Guide. - No. 27 (May 1939) included the first appearance of Batman, featured since in each issue. HOLDINGS: no. 26,37,44-49,58,68,96,98, 107-108, 112, 136,188, 194, 196, 198,200,222,224,234,242-243, 245-247,257,259-260,267,275-278,281-287,292-301,306-325,327-335, 337-550,552,554-622.624-657, 659-669 (1939-1993) 1. Detective and mystery comic books, strips, etc. 2. Superhero comics. I. Batman. II. National Periodical tions. III. DC Comics, Inc. Call no.: PN6728.1 .N3D4
Figure 2.
- COMIC RESEARCHLIBRARIES-
Publica-
MSU Cataloging for “Detective Comics.”
VOL. 24, No. 1 (SPRING 1998)
39
represented by an analytic record, with contributions from library staff and from other indexers (such as the members of the Grand Comic Database Project, an ambitious project attempting to index all comics ever published).5 The MSU collection records on OCLC were also a help to Marion Davis when she was cataloging the Library of Congress’s collection. By using cooperative cataloging, she was able to use MSU information to enhance LOC records. Among the data items added were frequency changes, links to earlier and later titles, and notes about publishing gaps.6 MSU is also part of The Consortium of Popular Culture Collections in the Midwest (CPCCM), four Midwestern universities which share a collecting focus in related subject areas, one of which is comic related materiale7 One of the other libraries in the CPCCM is Ohio State T_Jniversity,8which has a Cartoon, Graphic, and Photographic Arts Research Library. While dealing more with comic art, the collection contains over 10,000 comics and follows MSU’s cataloging procedure. According to its curator, Lucy Shetlon Caswell, OSU’s collection attempts to have representative examples of the various genres of comic books. The exception to this is the works of comics individuals, such as comics great Will Eisner, whose papers are held there. In that case, the library is attempting to collect all of their comic book work. OSU’s Cartoon Research Library recently received approximately 150,000 pounds of materials from The San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, giving OSU the largest collection of original cartoon art and the largest collection of comic tear sheets and clipping files in the United States. A third member of the CPCCM is Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green, Ohio.’ The Robert S. Bravard collection of comic books is part of the overall Popular Culture Library and consists of over 50,000 issues. This is mainly in “paper” form, with some microfiche reprints of Golden Age series. Like the others, the collection is open to the general public, though often with staff supervision. Preservation techniques are the same as the other libraries, and new acquisitions come through gifts, with the budget for the collection (about ten percent of the annual supply budget) going toward supplies for the comics and other materials. The Bravard collection also includes fanzines and other comic related miscellany, including a Ray Bradbury collection that contains rare material connected to comic book adaptations of his work. The comic collection is only cataloged through an in-house finding aid, but Head Librarian Alison M. Scott hopes to soon have it join the rest of the collection on OCLC. A cataloger
40
SERIALSREVIEW
has been hired, and work will begin later this year. Kent State University, the fourth member of the CPCCM, has a small comic collection of about 125 books, including some from the Golden Age and some Spanish Language comics. Another library that keeps its comic books in a popular culture collection is The Hillman Library at the University of Pittsburgh.” The Archive of Popular Culture is part of the Special Collections Department, and was established in 1974. Besides a collection of over 2,000 paperback science fiction novels, and a collection of fanzines and pulp magazines, the Archives also contain over 16,000 comic books, mostly from the Golden Age period (1930s and 1940s). The bulk of the comics collection, as well as some other items in the collection, was donated to the library by the Pittsburgh Comix Club and has been enhanced over time by individual gifts. The Library does not actively purchase comic books. Issues in the Archives collection are arranged in random order as they arrive, but they are controlled through an extensive item inventory. For storage, the comics are placed, usually two together, into an acid free folder, which is then placed in a document case. While the collection is open to anyone, it can only be accessed via the special collections department, and then only with advance notice. Two collections in the Midwest that are not part of the CPCCM are Northwestern University and Indiana University. Northwestern’s’ ’ collection consists of about 18,000 comics, as well as 100 Big Little Books which are “hardback comics,” about 4x4 inches and 1.5 inches thick and generally printed on low quality paper. The organization is alphabetical, with “the numbers of the items held on the back of each card.” Preservation is maintained with the use of plastic and/or mylar bags, and the books are located in environmentally controlled stacks. The collection at Indiana University’s Lilly Library I2 contains about 1,000 different titles, with generally one to three issues per title (though they do have comprehensive holdings for a few titles). They utilize an in-house catalog for the comics, which are organized by LC classification and cuttered by title. The comics are housed in acid-free sleeves, folders, and/or boxes. Both libraries allow public access to the collection (under usual “rare books” rules) and both get their comics through donations and still add to the collections. Of course not all CRLs activeiy build their collections. For example, the special collections area of the University of Chicago’s (UC) Joseph Regenstein Library I3holds a collection of only about 2,150 comic
-DAVID S. SERCHAY-
books, published between 1949 and 1959, that were donated by UC alumnus Walter C. Dopierala in 1973. The collection is housed in forty-five Hollinger boxes and is stored and listed by genre (comedy-fantasy, adventure, westerns, super-heroes, and a near complete run of Classics Illustrated), with an additional index of characters. Some collections are dedicated to only a certain area of comics or to a certain individual. The major comic collection of Iowa State University’s collection, 14 which is part of their Rare Book Collection, is The Underground Comix collection. Underground Comix began in the late 1960s and often contained adult themes, references to drug use, and other counter-culture elements. The Iowa State collection consists of almost 3,600 issues from 1,455 titles and was started after a sizable gift was donated in the early 1970s. The collection, which contains such bizarre titles as Bicentennial Gross-Outs, Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary, From the Files of the Alienated War Baby Report, A Plain Talk with Puerto Ricans about Things in General, Amputee Love, Mickey Rat, GJDRKZLXCBWQ, and the most famous underground book, Zap, was enhanced by further donations until 1991. The Comix are stored in hanging files in alphabetical order, in climate controlled areas, and are separated by their sizes-standard, oversize, and undersize. The collection is listed only in a card index, though a backlog of several hundred comix has recently been indexed and filed. In addition, ISU’s public catalog (ICAT) contains a group record describing the collection as a whole. ICAT users will also retrieve the group record by searching for one of the eighteen titles or twelve authors as a keyword. Also included in the rare books collection is a small number of comic books published by EC Comics in the early 1950s. The collection includes such noted titles as Tales from the Crypt, Weird Fantasy, and Two-Fisted Tales, books that were innovative in both story and art, until the rise of the Comics Code in the mid-1950s resulted in their cancellation (ironically, the code also helped to give rise to the Underground Comix movement). Unlike the Underground collection, the EC books are fully cataloged as serials on the ICAT database (see Figure 3). Despite this, neither the EC or the Underground collection have been requested by the public for some time. Another closed collection is the E. Nelson Bridwell Collection in the Special Collections area of The University of Tulsa’s McFarlin Library.” The collection includes several hundred comics written andfor edited
- COMICRESEARCH LIBRARIES -
between 1943-1987 by the late E. Nelson Bridwell, an Oklahoma native. The collection, which was donated by Bridwell’s aunt in 1989, is housed in thirteen document boxes and the comics are arranged alphabetically by title, with each title then arranged by date and number. Title changes are not acknowledged and changed titles, such as Superboy and Legion of Super-heroes, are kept in separate boxes according to title. The collection, which also includes some of Bridwell’s personal items and articles about him, is open to the public (under special collection rules). The library also has a microfilm collection of about 150 comic titles from the 1940s. Lists of both collections can be found by going to http://www.lib.utulsa.edu/speccoll/speccoll.htm and clicking on the Literary Manuscripts Collections Individual Guides. Other collections from people in the industry include Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Harry “A” Chesler Collection and The University of Oregon’s Gardner Fox collection. A California-based comic library is the University of California-Riverside (UCR),16 whose comics are in the J. Lloyd Eaton Collection of Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror, and Utopia. Besides having over 65,000 volumes of SF/Fantasy/horror literature, 45,000 fanzines, thousands of issues of genre magazines, and the literary papers of several noted authors, the Eaton collection also contains between 65,000 and 70,000 issues of comic books from that genre, including a large number that were recently donated. The three major donations are: The Edwin Casebeer collection of around 15,000 issues from the 1950s to early 1980s which has been processed but not cataloged; the Bruce Pelz collection which is currently in ninety long banker’s boxes with thirty-five more to be added next year and is currently being sifted and sorted; and the Frank Como collection which will remain in 130 long banker’s boxes until the library building is retrofitted. The books that were previously in the collection are arranged by title and for protection have been placed in archival mylar sleeves, with many also having archival backing boards. The collection is accessible to anyone and is frequently used by UCR students. One of the newest major comic book collections in a university library is the Michael J. Ciaraldi collection at Brown University. ’ 7 Ciaraldi decided to donate his collection when he moved from Rochester, New York to Acton, Massachusetts in 1996 and found that his collection, which after twenty-five years came to over 60,000 issues, tilled 255 cardboard cartons and weighed about three tons, was too big for his house. Plus, it was so unorganized that he could never find
VOL.
24, No. 1 (SPRING 1998)
41
A.
PUBLIC CATALOG RECORD FROM ICAT CATALOG (http://www.iastate.edu/scholar/db/icat.html)
Title:
Weird Science.
Published: VOL. 1, NO. 12 (MAY/JUNE 22 (NOV.?DEC. 1953) // Subjects:
SCIENCE FICTION,
Notes: CONTINUES: ENCE-FANTASY. . Other titles:
1950) -V. 1 NO. 15 (Sept./OCT.
AMERICAN
1950) ; V. 1, NO. 5 (NOV./DEC.
1950) -V. 1, NO.
-PERIODICALS
SADDLE ROMANCES.
MERGED WITH:
WEIRD FANTASY, TO BECOME:
WEIRD SCI-
SADDLE ROMANCES
Location/Call Number/Status: PARKS LIBRARY Special Collections Call Number: PS648.S3 ,W44X Not available Circ. info not available
B.
MARC FORMAT
001 0
008810522d19501953nyubrp 035
$a adp73 10400
049
$a IWAK $v
050 0
$a PS648.S3 $b .W44X
24500
$a WEIRD SCIENCE.
247 11
$a SADDLE ROMANCES
(1)
$Y
650 0
Oeng
1952-1953
3620 $a VOL. 1, NO. 12 (MAY/JUNE 22 (NOV./DEC. 1953) // $a CONTINUES: 500 ENCE-FANTASY.
0
AMERICAN
Figure 3.
$n
1950) -V. 1, NO. 15 (SEPT./OCT.
SADDLE ROMANCES.
$a SCIENCE FICTION,
u
1950) ; V. 1, NO. 5 (NOV./DEC. 1950) -V. 1, NO.
MERGED WITH: WEIRD FANTASY, TO BECOME:
WEIRD SCI-
$X PERIODICALS.
Iowa State University Cataloging for “Weird Science.”
what he needed. As he could not bear to have his col-
to his new home, and as they did not have a comics
lection broken up and sold, he posted messages on the Usenet comics and library-themed newsgroups offering his collection. The ideal library for him would do the following: (1) It would create an inventory and arrange to have the collection appraised for IRS purposes; (2) It would be willing to preserve and protect the items and make them accessible for the enjoyment and education of scholars and the general public and not sell it off (except for duplicates); (3) It would be willing to reimburse him for shipping costs or arrange to pick up the comics; (4) It would be located relatively close to Boston, Massachusetts, in case he ever wanted to read some of them again; and (5) It would be willing to designate them as the Michael J. Ciaraldi Collection (the last two criteria were optional). Originally, Ciaraldi was going to donate the collection to Words & Pictures Museum in Northampton, Massachusetts. This worked for him, since it was close
library, the collection would be useful right away. Unfortunately, this plan did not work out because the Museum could not fit the collection into its building and did not have the staff to catalog it. Ciaraldi went back to the newsgroups and in late 1996 decided to donate the collection to Brown’s John Hay Library. The Library had the necessary staff and space, was open to the general public, and was only about an hour away. The collection is being donated in installments, with the first, comprised of 6,388 issues (from 2,225 titles) donated last year. The collection covers a large range of genres, formats, and topics, including hundreds of graphic novels, and is filed by title. The comics are currently stored in acid-free Hollinger boxes, with plans to put the individual issues into mylar sleeves. The collection has been sorted and inventoried, and manual records for each title are available.
42
SERIALSREVIEW
-DAVIDS.SERCHAY-
The Ciaraldi collection isn’t the only comics collection in the Hay Library. For the past five years, the Library has held the Wayne D. Poulin Collection of comics which was donated by Brown Professor Barton St. Armand, in memory of a deceased relative, the original collector. The Poulin collection is made up of about 10,000 issues, is housed in three-foot comic storage boxes (with the issues in mylar sleeves), and is filed by title. The Library has created a title database, but there is no official catalog or Web access at the moment. There are no plans to merge the two collections. The Hay Library also contains other collections, including the Miller Collection of Wit and Humor, which includes various kinds of comic strips and cartoons. PUBLIC AND SPECIAL LIBRARIES
Not all CRLs in America are academic libraries. The New York Public Library’s Center for the Humanities’* also collects comics. Most of its cataloged collection is made up of microform reproductions, such as a complete run of selected 1939-1956 titles and a 1956- 1988 collection. The latter consists of two components: a 1959 donation of 200 comics; and beginning in 1965, an annual sampling of various comic book genres on sale at news stands or comic shops. Once per year, an NYPL librarian would purchase a representative sample of titles, including cartoon, television, moving picture, adventure, and romantic comics, and the acquisitions would then be filmed by the Library. This practice was discontinued in 1988. The 1939-1956 collection is reproduced on color microfiche and all titles are fully cataloged. The 1956-1988 collection appears on black and white microfilm and a catalog for it is forthcoming. In addition, the NYPL has over 10,000 uncataloged paper comics, which are currently being sorted, collated, stamped, and shelved by title. Eventually they will be cataloged, classified, and shelved by call number, but at the moment such enhanced treatment is being reserved for graphic novels, monographs, and reprint collections. Unlike other CRLs, NYPL does not keep the comics in plastic sleeves, but instead stores them flat in 15 l/2 x 10 l/2” Gaylord acid-free clamshell boxes, located in a locked cage in air-conditioned stacks. As with other CRLs, the paper collection comes from a number of large donations (as well as one private purchase). Since the materials are not yet cataloged, the paper comics are not available to the general public. Once cataloged, access will be provided under the usual rare book/special collection rules.
-COMIC RESEARCH LCBRARIES-
Other American library collections include California State University, Syracuse University, and UCLA. Non-university library collections in the US include the Smithsonian Institution Library, the Walt Disney Archives, and the International Museum of Cartoon Art in Boca Raton, Florida. FOREIGN LIBRARIES
A number of international libraries have comic collections, including the University of Sydney in Australia. I9 The comic collection, which currently includes over 16,000 issues, began as part of the Ron Graham Collection of Science Fiction and has been enhanced, thanks to the donations of collectors throughout Australia, since Graham’s death in 1978. The comics are arranged by title (about 12,000 titles) and are preserved by being placed in pH neutral mylar Ziplock bags and stored in archival pamphlet boxes. A complete listing is available in a printed index, which will eventually be copied into an archival database to be placed on the library’s home page. Ironically, despite being an Australian library, only about five percent of the books are from Australia, the vast majority being from America. The only major collection of Australian comics in the public domain can be found at The National Library of Australia in Canberra. Other major international collections include: The Centre Belge de la Bande Dessinee in Brussels, Belgium, the central collection in Europe; The College de Sherbrooke in Quebec, Canada, home of the largest and most complete collection of European comics in North America; Maison d’Ailleurs in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland, which contains the “definitive collection of French science fiction,” including science fiction comics; The Victoria and Albert Museum’s National Art Library, in London,20 which contains several archives and collection about comic books and strips, including the “Krazy Kat Arkive” of Twentieth Century Popular Culture, with holdings of over 4,200 comic books from around the world; and Det Kuloerte Bibliotek in Koebenhavn, Denmark, which maintains a collection of comics strictly for study purposes, though all of Denmark’s approximately 400 public libraries also have comic collections. CONCLUSION
Comic books have been gaining a growing reputation as being more than just “kiddie books.” The acclaim VOL. 24, No. 1 (SPRING 1998) 43
given recent works like Marvels, Sandman, and the Pulitzer Prize winning MUMS:A Survivor’s Tale, have helped them to be recognized as both art and literary forms, worthy of study. As academic interest grows, it will be the Comic Research Libraries that provide scholars and collectors with the information that they will need. APPENDIX: DIRECTORYOF NOTABLE COMIC RESEARCHLIBRARIES COMPILED BY DAVID S. SERCHAY
This information comes from Randall Scott’s list of Comic Research Libraries located at http:// www.lib.msu.edu/comics/director/comres.htm. Libraries on the Scott list that contain comic strips and comic art but not comic books have been excluded here. An asterisk indicates that the library has been described in depth in this article. UNIVERSITYLIBRARIESIN NORTHAMERICA
*Bowling Green State University Contact: Librarian, Popular Culture Library, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio 43403.419-372-2450. Holdings: Over 36,000 comic books, and comic related items including Big Little Books, fanzines, pulps, and trading Cards. *Brown University Contact: Curator of the Harris Collection, The John Hay Library, Box A, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island 02912.401-863-1514. Holdings: At least 17,000 comics, with more being added thanks to the donation by Michael Ciaraldi. The collection should eventually reach over 75,000 issues. California State University, Fullerton Contact: Archivist, Archive of Popular Culture, California State University Library, Box 4150, Fullerton, California 92634. 714-773-3444. Holdings: Roughly 2,000 comic books. Fairleigh Dickinson University Contact: Curator of Special Collections, The Harry “A” Chesler Collection of Illustration and Comic
44
SERIALSREVIEW
Art, Fairleigh Dickinson University Library, Madison, New Jersey 07940. 201-377-4700. Holdings: Some comic books, but mainly original comics art with books of supporting material. *Indiana University Contact: Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana 47405. 812-335-2452. Holdings: About 1,000 comics. *Iowa State University Contact: Department of Special Collections, The Parks Library, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa 50011.515-294-6672. Holdings: One of the best collections of underground and new wave comix. As well as over eighty E.C. comic books. Kent State University Contact: Kent State University. Library, Special Collections and Archives. Kent, Ohio, 44242. 2 16-672-2270. Holdings: 125 comic books including some in Spanish. Lock Haven University Contact: University Archivist, Archives and Records Centre, Stevenson Library Building, Lock Haven University, Lock Haven, Pennsylvania 17745. 717-893-2371. Holdings: 700 comic books from the late 196Os/ early 1970s. *Michigan State University Contact: Comic Art Collection, Michigan State University Libraries, East Lansing, Michigan 48824- 1048.5 17-355-3770. Holdings: Largest University Collection in the U.S. Over 118,000 comics, including more than 20,000 foreign comics. Also has over 3,000 microfilmed comics and over 10,000 items about comics. *Northwestern University Contact: Northwestern University Library, Special Collections Department, 1937 Sheridan Rd., Evanston, Illinois 60208-2300.708-49 l-3635. Holdings: 18,000 comics, plus Books.
100 Big Little
- DAVID S.SERCHAY -
*Ohio State University Contact: Cartoon Research Library, 27 West 17th Ave. Mall, Wexner Center for the Visual Arts, Ohio 43210. Room 023L, Columbus, 614-292-0538.
University of Kansas Contact: Spencer Librarian, Department of Special Collections, Spencer Research Library, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045.913-864-4334.
Holdings: 10,000 comic books, but mainly concentrates on cartoon art.
University of Kentucky Contact: Special Collections, Margaret I. King Library, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40506. 606-257-8611.
Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville Contact: Rare Book Librarian, Lovejoy Library, SIU, Edwardsville, Illinois 62026.618-692-2665. Holdings: 1,500 comic books. Syracuse University Contact: George Arents Research Library, 600 Bird Library, Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York 13244-2010.3 15-423-2585 Holdings: Mainly pulp fiction and some comic strip art, but the Street & Smith archives contain S&S comic books. University of California, Los Angeles Contact: Special Collections, UCLA University Library, 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, California 90024. 213- 825-4988. Holdings: An “extensive” collection that includes a collection of first issues. *University of California, Riverside Contact: Eaton Collection, Dept of Special Collections, Tomas Rivera Library, University of California, Riverside, California 92521. 909-787-3233. Holdings: Several thousand comic books, including over 1,000 French comics, as part of the Eaton Collection of science fiction. *University of Chicago Contact: Curator of Special Collections, Joseph Regenstein Library, 1100 E. 57th St., Chicago, Illinois 60637. 3 12-702-8705. Holdings: 2,150 comic books published between 1949 and 1959. University of Connecticut Contact: Alternative Press Collection, Special Collections, Homer Babbidge Library, University of Connecticut, Storm, Connecticut 06268. 203-486-2524. Holdings: 150 underground comix.
- COMIC RESEARCHLIBRARIES-
Holdings: 500 Big Little Books
Holdings: “Some” comics as well as fanzines. University of Louisville Library Contact: University of Louisville Library. Rare Books and Special Collections, Louisville, Kentucky 40292. 502-588-6762. Holdings: The Edgar Rice Burroughs Collection contains some Burroughs related comic books. University of Maryland Baltimore County Contact: Special Collections Librarian, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Catonsville, Maryland 21228. 301-455-2353. Holdings: 1,000 comic books including an extensive underground collection. University of Minnesota Contact: Curator, Children’s Literature Research Collections, 109 Walter Library, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455. 6 12-624-4576. Holdings: 1,200 comic books and 500 Big Little Books as part of the Children’s Research Collections. University of Missouri-Columbia Contact: Special Collections Librarian, 402 Ellis Library, University of Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, Missouri 65201-5149. Holdings: 300 underground comix and a large number of comics reprint books. University of New Brunswick Contact: Curator, Science Fiction and Fantasy Collection, Ward Chipman Library, University of New Brunswick, P.O. Box 5050, Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada E2L 4L5. 506-648-5700. Holdings: Some comic books included. University of Oregon Contact: Curator of Special Collections, University of Oregon Library, Eugene, Oregon 97403. 503-686-3068.
VOL. 24, No. 1 (SPRING 1998) 45
Holdings: The Gardner Fox collection includes not only comics that Fox worked on, but his papers as well. University of Pittsburgh Contact: Coordinator, Special Collections, 363 Hillman Library, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15260.412-624-4428. Holdings: 8,500 comic books, plus fanzines and some Big Little Books. *University of Tulsa Contact: Department of Special Collections, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa, 600 S. College Ave., Tulsa, Oklahoma 74104.918-631-2496. Holdings: Contains both the E. Nelson Bridwell Collection and a number of Golden Age comics on microfilm. Washington State University Contact: Curator, Modern Literary Collections, Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Library, Pullman, Washington 99164-5610.509-335-5517. Holdings: The Counter-Culture Comix collection holds about 2,500 underground, new wave, and self-published mini-comics OTHERNORTHAMERICANCOLLECTIONS The Cartoon Art Museum Contact: Administrator, Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Third Street., San Francisco, California 94107. 415-546-3922. Holdings: Comic book pages and covers, and may or may not have actual comic books. College De Sherbrooke Contact: Information Center on Comics, College de Sherbrooke, 475 Part St., Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada JlH 5M7. Holdings: Largest and most complete collection of European comic in North America, as well as some American comic books. Comic Research Library Contact: Curator, Comic Research Library, Tappen, British Columbia, Canada VOE 2X0.604-835-8529. Holdings: A private collection that includes over 1,000 comic books and a large number of Big Little Books, as well as hundreds of books on comics.
46
SERIALSREVIEW
International Museum of Cartoon Art Contact: International Museum of Cartoon Art, 201 Plaza Real Boca Raton, Florida 33429. 561-391-2200. Holdings: Big Little Books, Foreign Comics, underground comix and more. However the library area for the new Museum has yet to be constructed. *Library of Congress Contact: Head, Periodical Section, Serial and Government Publications, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20015. 202-707-5467. Holdings: 100,000 comics, a large number of which have been cataloged. National Archives of Canada Contact: Chief, Art Acquisition and Research, Documentary Art and Photography Division, National Archives of Canada, 395 Wellington St., Ottawa, Ontario KlA ON3.613-996-7766. Holdings: Over 2,000 comics published in Canada. *New York Public Library Contact: Librarian, Rare Book and Manuscript Division, New York Public Library, Fifth Ave. and 42nd Street, New York, New York 10018. 212-930-0801. Holdings: Over 10,000 comic books as well as a large number of comics on microfilm. The San Francisco Academy of Comic Art Contact: San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, 2850 Ulloa St., San Francisco, California 94116. 415-681-1737. Holdings: emphasizes comic strips (over 4.5 million), but also holds several thousand comic books. Smithsonian Institution Libraries Contact: Chief, Special Collections, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian InstituWashington, DC 20560. tion Libraries, 202-357-1568. Holdings: Despite having its name on two comic reprint collections, the Smithsonian only has a small amount of actual comic books, including thirteen bound volumes of 1940s comics featuring Wonder Woman. Walt Disney Archives Contact: Archivist, Walt Disney Archives, 500 S. Buena Vista St., Burbank, California 91521. 8 18-840-5424.
- DAVID S. SERCHAY -
Holdings: Complete set of United States and most foreign Disney comic books. FOREIGNCOLLECTIONS Det Kuloerte Bibliotek Contact: Librarian, Det Kuloerte Bibliotek, Krystalgade 15, Koebenhavn, Denmark. Phone: (45) 3393 6060. Holdings: A comics collection strictly for study purposes. Maison d’ Ailleurs Contact: Maison d' Ailleurs. Case postale 3181, CH- 1401 Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland. Phone: 24 21 6438. Holdings: large science fiction collection includes science fiction comic books.
that
National Library of Australia Contact: Manuscripts Librarian, National Library of Australia, Canberra, ACT 2660 Australia. Holdings: The John Ryan collection is the only major collection of Australian comics in the public domain. *University of Sydney Contact: University of Sydney Library. Rare Books and Special Collections, Sydney, N.S.W. Australia 2006. 02/692-2992. Holdings: Over 12,000 comic books, mainly from the United States. Victoria and Albert Museum Contact: National Art Library, Victoria & Albert Museum, South Kensington, London SW72RL, United Kingdom. Phone: 171 9388500. Holdings: “Krazy Kat Archive” for contemporary popular imagery; plus Rakoff Collection of Comics, with 21,000 items. NOTESANDREFERENCES 1. Much of the information in this paper on the libraries came in part from “Comic Research Libraries as of July 1993 (with some corrections and improvements as of April 1997) by Randall W. Scott found at http://lib.msu.edu/comics/ director/comres.htm 2. Information on the Library of Congress’s comic book collection comes from the following sources: The LOC’s
- COMIC RESEARCHLIBRARIES-
“Comic Book Collection” Web page at http://lcweb.loc.gov/ spcolV049.html ; “Serial Record Catalogs Comics” by Jean Hirons in The Gazette, A Weekly Newspaperfijr the Library Stafs; e-mail between Marion A. Davis of the LOC and Robert Klein from December 18, 1997, reposted on the Grand Comic-book Database Project Listserv; and e-mail correspondence from Davis to myself, January, 1998. 3. The Serials & Newspaper Reading Room is located in Room LM- 133 in the James Madison Memorial Building (entrance on Independence Avenue, between First and Second Streets, S.E.) in Washington DC. The phone number is 202-707-5690. 4. Information on Michigan State University Comes from the following sources: e-mail correspondence with Randall W. Scott, October, 1996; Comics Librarianship: A Handhook by Randall W. Scott, McFarland and Co. 1990; visits to the various comic-related Web sites at MSU (http:// www.lib.msu.edu/comics/); “The Comic Art Collection,” a pamphlet from MSU’s Special Collections Divisions, and the MSU Webz Magic catalog (http://webz.msu.edu). 5. For more information on the Grand Comic-book base Project (GCD), go to http://www.nostromo.no/gcd/
Data-
6. E-mail from Marion A. Davis, January, 1998. Ms. Davis also used the GCD to help her with her cataloging by reading their discussion list, which gave her helpful information and “helped [her] to feel that [her] work was making the LC comic collection more accessible to people who would appreciate it.” 7. Pamphlet entitled “Consortium lections in the Midwest.”
of Popular Culture Col-
8. Information on OSU comes from e-mail correspondence with Lucy Caswell, Curator of the OSU Cartoon Research library, in October, 1996 and January, 1998. Ms. Caswell is the editor of the journal INKS: Cartoon and Comic Art Studies. 9. Information on BGSU comes from e-mail correspondence with Alison Scott, Head Librarian of the Popular Culture Collection, in October, 1996 and January 1998. Additional information on the Popular Culture Library can be found at http://www.bgsu.edu/colleges/library/pcl/ pcl2.html 10. Information comes from the following sources: e-mail correspondence with Charles Aston Jr, head of the Special Collections Department and Humanities Libraries Cluster, Hillman Library, on January 16, 1998; and the Special Colat http:Ilwww.pitt.edu/-aspworkl lections Web page spcol.html 1I. Information on Northwestern comes from e-mail correspondence with R. Russell Maylone, Curator of McCormick Library of Special Collections, on October 2 1, 1996.
VOL. 24, No. 1 (SPRING1998)
47
12. Information on Indiana University comes from e-mail correspondence with Becky Cape of the Lilly Library on October 22, 1996. The URL for the Lilly Library (though not the comic book collection) is http:Nwww.indiana.edu/-liblilly 13. Information on the University of Chicago comes from e-mail correspondence with Alice Schreyer on October 9, 1996. Information on UC’s Special Collections can be found at http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/LibInfo/Libraries/SpCll 14. Information on ISU comes from the following sources: e-mail correspondence with Becky Jordan in October, 1996 and January, 1998; ISU Library Special Collections Department General Information Web page (note: page no longer exists); The ISU Library ICAT on-line catalog system (http:/ “Culture/ /www.lib.iastate.edu/scholar/db/icat.html); Counter Culture” Past and Present,” an exhibit catalog done for the department in I98 1; and a 1980 listing of Underground Comix held by the Special Collections Department. Information on the ISU Special Collections Department can be found at http://lib.iastate.edu/spcl/spcl.html 15. Information on the University of Tulsa comes from the following sources: e-mail correspondence with Sid Hutter of the McFarlin Library Department of Special Collections, and the gopher site for the E. Nelson Bridwell Collection, accessible via http://www.lib.utulsa.edu/speccoll/speccoll.htm
George Slusser, February 12, 1998; and the Eaton Collection Web page at http:/Aib-www.ucr.edu/spec_coll/eaton.html. 17. Information on Brown comes from the following: e-Mail correspondence from Rosemary L. Cullen, Head Special Collections Librarian, John Hay Library, on January 16, 1998; a press release on the Ciaraldi collection; the Web page of Michael Ciaraldi that deals with his donation (http:// www.ultranet.co/-ciaraldi/comics.html); post by Ciaraldi on the rec.arts.comics.info newsgroup on August 9, 1996; and “Comic Books Go to the Ivy League” by Joann Loviglio, written for the Associated Press on August 3, 1997. 18. Information on the New York Public Library comes from e-mail correspondence with Alice Dowd in October, 1996 and January 1998, and “Comic Books: A Research Guide” located at http://www.nypl.org/research/chss/grd/ resguides/comix.html 19. Information on the University of Sydney comes from e-mail correspondence with Neil Boness, Rare Books and Special Collections Librarian, in October, 1996 and January, 1998. Information on US’s Rare Books collection can be found at http:Nwww.library/usyd.edu.au/Services/Libraries/ Rare/index. html 20. The National Art Library “Comics in the National Art Library” page at http://nal.vam.ac.ukalcomic.html
16. Information on UC-Riverside comes from e-mail correspondence from Sid Berger on Jan. 26, 1998; e-mail from
48
SERIALSREVIEW
- DAVID S. SERCHAY -