Abstract

Developing collections of graphic novels and other works of narrative and sequential art has been making waves for the past few years, but libraries in France and Quebec have been
collecting “bande dessinée” for decades. As opposed to comic books, the Franco-Belgian format of choice is the “album”. These hard-covered books of about 50 pages are more than suitable for our institutions. Some collections in Quebec even top the 10,000 document mark!

When the Bibliothèque Nationale du Québec merged with the City of Montréal’s central library, it was quite natural to develop the english-language Graphic Novel collection.
Unfortunately, collections development in this area is still a burgeoning field. That is why Olivier Charbonneau, Subject Librarian and Researcher at Concordia University, was brought in to propose 1000 English language Graphic Novels for the collection.

Different techniques were employed to select the documents. This lecture presents the methodology used to prepare the list and, more generally, insight about selecting English language Graphic Novels or book length comic books on an ongoing basis. Furthermore, the five areas of the collection will be discussed, namely: classic superhero, contemporary superhero, comic strips, underground and manga publications.