The Graphic Librarian

Happily Never After? - New Twists on Old Tales

2007-04-25T23:21:00.000-07:00

This is the orginal version of a post I typed up for my library's teen blog. Enjoy! :-)

If you asked me to tell you the exact moment that I fell in love with fairy tales, I couldn’t…at least, not exactly. As I child, I know I loved them – that elusive “happily ever after” kept me greedily coming back for more. However, as I grew older I suppose I also grew jaded. I quickly learned that “happily ever after” wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Then, I discovered something that changed the way I looked at fairy tales forever. The tame, watered-down versions I’d been fed as a child were not the original tales collected and told by Perrault, the Brothers Grimm and others. The true stories were actually MUCH darker – and they didn’t always have happy endings.

From that point on I became fascinated by the range of variations that could be found on just a single familiar tale, like Cinderella, for example. I immediately began building a collection of fairy tale adaptations. It was easy, of course, to find picture books that retold the famous stories, such as Cinderella Skeleton, The Frog Prince Continued and Rumpelstiltskin's Daughter. However, although these were definitely fun to look at, I wanted something meatier, something that would flesh out the characters I knew and loved – I wanted NOVELS! So, off I went in search of what I was sure would turn out to be a very elusive topic. Was I ever in for a shock! There was FAR more out there than I ever could have imagined! It quickly became obvious to me that I wasn’t the only one that craved more substance in my fairy tales, and I soon became devoted to authors such as Donna Jo Napoli, Gail Carson Levine, Mercedes Lackey, and Robin McKinley. Of course, I discovered many other wonderful authors as well - while they weren’t fairy tale novel gurus, each had one or two wonderful “fairy tale-related” stories like Edith Pattou’s East, Shannon Hale’s The Goose Girl, and Diane Stanley’s Bella at Midnight. It also wasn’t long before I discovered a wonderful series called “Once Upon a Time” where each book focuses on a different fairytale and turns the story on its head. For example, what if Little Red Riding Hood wasn’t so little and had more of a problem with werewolves than actual wolves? Or what if Beauty, instead of being held captive by a Beast, became the prisoner of a handsome Native American shaman instead?

There are so many wonderful retellings, but during my search I discovered something even better – GRAPHIC NOVELS! That’s right - while there aren’t many around, quality definitely makes up for quantity! There are some absolutely wonderful GNs that travel into the world of fairy tales. Probably the most famous series is Fables, which is written by Bill Willingham. It takes all the fairy tale characters (good and bad) from all of your favorite stories and throws them together in modern day New York. They’re definitely NOT the characters you might remember from childhood, but what really makes this story interesting is WHY they’ve all been forced to live out their days in the mortal realm. Another terrific addition to the GN fairy tale genre is a series called Lullaby by Ben Avery. This story uses not only fairy tale creations, but also other characters from classic literature, such as a very curvaceous version of Alice from Alice in Wonderland and a sword-wielding Jim Hawkins from Treasure Island. Recently, Marvel decided to take on the genre as well with X-Men: Fairy Tales, and they’ll soon be releasing Spider-Man Fairy Tales and Avengers Fairy Tales, too! All of these stories take your favorite Marvel characters and put them into a fun variety of multi-cultural fairy tales…each with it’s own special twist.

You can also find a variety of other types of fairy tale retellings in the form of short stories, poetry, movies and even Broadway plays. Gregory Maguire & Terry Windling both have some great short stories to share. And, while we don’t carry anything in the library’s collection, Disenchantments by Wolfgang Mieder and If the Shoe Fits by Laura Whipple have some great poetry to offer. As for movies, one of my all-time favorites is “Ever After” with Drew Barrymore and Dougray Scott, but if your looking for something dark, try “Snow White: a Tale of Terror” with Sigourney Weaver and Sam Neill. Broadway also offers a wonderful morality play entitled “Into the Woods”; it’s a musical which brings together a variety of fairy tale denizens who must band together when a giant invades the enchanted forest. More recently, although not exactly a fairy tale re-telling, is the musical Wicked which retells the story of The Wonderful Wizard of OZ from the wicked witch’s point of view.

There are so many more wonderful books, authors, etc. I could talk about and suggest to you, but now that I’ve (hopefully) created an interest, I recommend you go out and explore for yourself. After all, as with many fairy tales themselves, the search itself is half of the adventure. ;-)

More Finished Reviews

2007-03-15T21:11:00.000-07:00

I've got three more review for you guys today! Yay! :-) My favorite by far was Kino no Tabi, but Wallflower was lots of fun, too!

Kino no Tabi, V.01

RahXephon, V.03

Wallflower, V.05

I know it's not much, and it may be even longer before I have more, but I'm working diligently on trying to get caught up on all of my manga reading and rarely have time to write except during my lunch breaks. So, stay with me, and I promise to do my best to have more for you soon.

Six Things That Would Make LibraryThing A+ in my Book!

2007-02-21T02:19:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I was playing around on LibraryThing, trying to avoid typing up my last paper for Capstone and I came up with the following list of things that would vastly improve my overall LibraryThing experience. So here they are in no particular order (mostly because I think they're all REALLY important!) LOL!

1) The ability to make specific books "private" instead of your whole library collection. DVDSpot offers this as an option, and it's a very handy feature indeed.

REASON: Now you don't have to worry about sharing your library with (fill in the name of a random relative here.)

2) The ability to review books you don't own.

REASON: If I don't like a book - I DON'T keep it. How am I supposed to warn other people if I can't review a book that's not in my own collection?

3) The ability to create a seperate Wishlist that doesn't add books to my current collection.

REASON: A Wishlist helps me keep track of stuff I DO eventually plan to buy, but I don't like that it adds it to my collection. Somehow that seems like cheating...

4) The ability to search other users' collections by ISBN.

REASON: This one is a bit selfish, I want to attach authors whose names are written in Japanese characters with their romanized counterparts in my personal collection and ISBN's seems like the fastest way to do that. There are plenty of other good reasons, too...I just can't think of any right now...

5) Making Barnes & Noble one of the availabe sites for book searching.

REASON: Okay, I admit it, this one is selfish, too. But honestly, I buy SO MANY books from Barnes & Nobles Press (I can't be the only one!) and NONE of the searchable sites can EVER find their ISBNs. So I'm always having to type them in manually despite the fact that they're sitting right there on Barnes & Noble's web site - taunting me. I know, I know, I'm SO lazy! ;-)

6) Stronger search capabilities (Okay, I lied before, this feature is WAY more important than all of the others put together!)

Example 1 - To be able to search for all books in my collection that have "Fantasy" in the title and are also tagged "Non-Fiction"

Example 2 - To be able to search for books in my collection that have ALL of the following tags: Manga, Fantasy, On Order

Example 3 - To be able to search for all of the books in my collection that were written by Neil Gaiman, have Sandman in the title, and have "Death" as one of the tags.

Example 4 - To be able to search for any tag that has the word "Fantasy" in it. I.E. the search would pull up not only books tagged "Fantasy", but also books tagged "Sci-Fantasy", "Fantasy Reference", "Fantasy Non-Fiction", etc.

New Reviews

2007-01-22T01:53:00.000-08:00

Ah, after an admittedly LONG wait, I've finally added three new reviews to my list.

Love Roma V.02

Made in Heaven V.01

Warcraft: Sunwell Trilogy V.02 (ARC)

Yay! Anyway, enjoy - I promise I'm working on even more as I type this. I actually spend my lunch breaks reading or writing for my reviews. LOL! I'm not sure if that makes me dedicated or pathetic. *snicker* I guess the truth is that I truly enjoy manga and I want to be able to give complete and critical reviews not only for fellow readers to use, but also for librarians to have when making manga purchases for their collections.

So, I'll see y'all next time. :-)

Excitement!

2006-12-16T00:02:00.000-08:00

Wow, I can't believe it! One of my reviews has been quoted - IN PRINT!!!! Granted, my name isn't mentioned, but it's definitely my review. The next time you're in the book store, pick up a copy of Tokyopop's The Dreaming, V.02 - My ListerX review was quoted on the inside of the back cover. YAY! *does a happy dance*

Anyway, moving on. :-) Thanks to the disappearance of ListerX, I've recently discovered a wonderful site called LibraryThing! While it will NEVER compare to the wonderful thoroughness of ListerX, I have to give it loads of points for being the most hands-on & user-friendly online catalog I've ever seen. I've managed to upload nearly my entire collection of over 3,500+ titles in less than a month! Of course, I haven't gotten them all properly cataloged yet, but just the fact that I was able to upload that many in such a sort amount of time is AMAZING! It also has the function of allowing you to hand-enter books that, for example, are too old to have ISBNs. Or maybe it's one of those mini-cookbooks you buy while standing in line at the grocery store - you can upload that, too. I admit, it does have a few flaws, but they're minor in comparison to the benefits. Another cool feature, if you have a cell phone with internet access, is that they've created a special cell phone-friendly site so that you can look up your collection while your at the book store, for example, to make sure you don't already own something before you buy it. (Yes, I really have done that before. . . more than once, actually) *grimaces* I have to admit that as much as I loved ListerX and continue to wish whole-heartedly every day for its return, in a way, I'm glad that it vanished because I never would have discovered LibraryThing otherwise.

Anyway, you may have noticed a change over on the left-hand menu bar - that's a portion of my LibraryThing "tag" list, which is basically a list of subjects you can add to each book in your collection. And the best part is that YOU get to create it. What you're seeing are the top 30 "most-used" tags that I've placed on various books I own. The larger the font is, the more that particular tag is used in my catalog. When clicked on, each tag will take you to a complete listing of that tag's use within the LibraryThing database. Pretty cool, huh?!

Yeah...so...I'll be going to bed now... ;-P

A Few Small Changes

2006-11-13T00:45:00.000-08:00

Well, as some of you may or may not know, ListerX is seemingly down for the count indefinitely. I don't know why it's vanished or if it will ever exist again. So, since I can no longer link to my reviews through the website, I've created some space elsewhere so that they'll still remain accessible to everyone. My hope is that one day ListerX will reappear again; I don't think I'll ever find a better site for cataloging my anime/manga collection. And believe me, over the past few weeks, I've tried. Nothing I've discovered so far on the web compares in the slightest. *heavy sigh* Anyway, I will continue to occassionally add reviews, despite ListerX's disappearance. After all, I have a ton of manga available to choose from and no reason not to continue reviewing the various series I've already started.

Unfortunately, for reasons I can't remember I didn't save my review for I Luv Halloween V.01 on my computer with all of the rest. Perhaps it was because I found it to be entirely too disturbing for my tastes, although it's possible I just forgot... Anyway, I no longer own the actual comic, so I can't even re-review it without buying another copy, which I have NO INTEREST WHATSOEVER in doing. So I'll just give a short little blurb for it here:

Fans of the horror genre, South Park, and various other dark, gory &/or comedic things will probably adore this ameri-manga. The artwork has a wonderful stylized look & the plot is creatively unique. However, the gore factor and heavy sexual innuendo both make this series an impossible choice for any school library collection. As for public libraries - well, the only way you'd get away with buying it is if it stayed safely tucked away in the Adult section...and even that might not be enough to save you if some parent were to discover it there.

So, with that said, I'll be signing off now. :-)

Reposted for Your Reading Pleasure

2006-09-15T10:40:00.000-07:00

Well, I know I haven't been writing much here lately. Mostly it's due to the fact that I've spent the past month or so preparing for & moving into my new home. Anyway, as I'm getting settled I figured I could offer up something I was asked to post for the Teen blog we have set up at my library. So here it is in all its "glory". LOL!

Why I Love Graphic Novels

When I was probably in 5th or 6th grade my library introduced me to the wonderful world of Wendy and Richard Pini’s Elfquest, and that was the beginning of my love for graphic novels (i.e. comic books) From there I explored numerous other authors and series, gravitating towards Batman after the first movie came out in ’88 and then to X-men when my best friend let me borrow her copy of the Dark Phoenix Saga in middle school. Later, during high school, I fell in love with Jeff Smith’s humorous epic, Bone, which often left me rolling with laughter (although it failed to amuse my teachers when I read during class.) High school also introduced me to the amazing art of Alex Ross, when a friend loaned me DC’s Kingdom Come, an amazing epic set in the far future, one where Batman controls Gotham via a system of hi-tech robots and Superman no longer cares what happens to the Earth and it’s people. Finally, in college I met some friends who threw me headlong into the wonderful world of manga, (i.e. Japanese comics) and I’ve been in graphic novel heaven ever since. Today, I’m a very eclectic comic reader; if the story looks interesting and the art is eye-catching I’ll pick up just about anything and give it a whirl.

My most recent read (aside from a plethora of manga) is a very imaginative and wholly engrossing retake on the Marvel universe, Neil Gaiman’s Marvel 1602. It’s certainly a far cry from his Sandman series, but is, nevertheless, incredibly enjoyable. Of course, I’ve always been a big fan of alternate universes/histories, but this is truly a work of art. Neil Gaiman decided to pose the question, “What if all of our most well-loved Marvel heroes hadn’t been born in the 20th century, but the 17th century instead?” and the result is an amazing story with some very surprising twists. At first I was a bit hesitant to read this collection because, as much as I love comics, I’m not one of those people that reads them religiously and I was worried I would miss out on and/or not understand all of what was going on. Was I ever wrong! I can’t believe I waited as long as I did to read this incredible story! I will admit that all of the recent Marvel movies helped me out considerably. In fact, if your knowledge of the Marvel universe is anything like mine(S-P-A-R-S-E!), you might want to have a movie fest before-hand - watch Spiderman 1, The Fantastic Four, Daredevil, and both of the X-Men movies. You might also want to keep a copy of Peter Sanderson’s Marvel Universe handy for any other extraneous characters that pop-up.

The plot is as follows – Queen Elizabeth has been assassinated, the planet Earth is in mortal chaos, and everyone is struggling to uncover the truth behind it all. Some blame the witchbreed (mutants), others claim the end of the world is at hand, but the truth is far more bizarre than anything the denizens of this altered world could possibly imagine. The story is excellently woven, and once everything is said and done you’ll still be craving more - because this is a world where Peter Parquah is apprenticed to the Royal English spy, Sir Nicholas Fury - a world where Spain’s Grand Inquisitor, Enrique, plots and schemes against his one-time friend Carlos Javier - a world where entire ballads have been written regarding the Crew of the Fantastik, who were altered forever after a fateful trip through the Sargasso Sea (the Bermuda Triangle) and then vanished without a trace - a world where, once you’ve immersed yourself, you’ll never want to leave.

New Side Bar Section

2006-08-20T00:23:00.000-07:00

Okay, this isn't going to be a very long post because it's late and I have to be up VERY early tomorrow. Anyway, just wanted to let ya'll know that I've added a new section to the side bar. It's down below my reviews - My Bulletin Boards & Displays. Clicking there will take you to a page filled with all of my various designs from work along with explanations for what I was doing &/or thinking while designing and creating each one. Enjoy! :-)

Time Marches Steadily Onward

2006-07-20T23:05:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know, it's been ages since I posted anything. But that doesn't mean I haven't been doing stuff. In fact, my busy schedule is what's been keeping me from my posts. On top of working my two jobs, Summer Reading Club started and there was a new program in the works every time I turned around. Not that that was a bad thing, they were tons of fun! - but it kept me constantly on my toes. I was also in search of (permanent) lodgings closer to my full time job, (the more time I have to sleep-in, the better!) I did FINALLY find a place (YAY!) and now my free time is consumed with getting things ready so I can move in - furnishing/cleaning/packing . . . yeah, well, you get the idea.

Oooh, I also have to brag a little - one of my ideas for the teens at my full-time job got special recognition - Talk about exciting! I was totally unaware that the city did stuff like that; it was extremely cool to say the least. :-D But still, sometimes I get the feeling that I may be going too fast in the wrong areas and too slow in the right ones. . . Does that make any sense at all? Still, I'm just going to keep doing my best and go with the flow of things (and keep my fingers crossed.) I was also really excited to be invited to help beef up our system's graphic novel collection. We do have a few things, but it's really just all over the board - Like having Kenshin #4 & 6 only or Inu Yasha #4, 16, & 22. It's really kind of weird, but those are the things I'm hoping to fix. I'm also planning on listening heavily to what's being asked for at my branch and hopefully the librarians at the other branches are doing them same.

Anyway, I think I've jabbered enough for one post, so I'll say good night (since I should've been in bed an hour ago.) LOL!

YALSA Gets Graphic!

2006-05-22T10:37:00.000-07:00

I was extremely happy to discover that the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA) has finally decided to put together an annual list of the best graphic novels for teens. YAY! They’re still accepting nominations, so if you want to put in your two cents worth hop on over to their website to suggest a few of your personal favs – but remember to follow all the rules and requirements. As for myself, I think I'll be nominating the recent Bone re-release as well as the Elfquest Archives V.03 re-release. You just can't escape from classic graphic novels - they're so perfectly timeless. Anyway, I really hope they get on the final list, which I think will be released sometime soon. I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

Sooooooooo Busy!

2006-04-17T01:42:00.000-07:00

I know, I know, it's been ages since I posted anything! But I honestly have a really good excuse. I've literally had approximately zero time to do anything other than eat, sleep, work and finish homework. Two jobs plus two grad classes, while not exactly hard is DEFINITELY time consuming! I'm so backed up on everything else it's not even funny. However, looking on the bright side, I've been getting a lot done at my new job. :) Slowly but steadily I'm revamping the YA bibliography folder, and I've done some shifting in the YA stacks to make special places for new books, Lone Stars, and graphic novels (aka illustrated fiction). I've also completed my very first bulletin board. YAY! It's set up for National Poetry Month and features the poetry of some local teens. For each poem I designed an original background to (hopefully) compliment to poetry itself. In some cases it was really easy to come up with something and in others it was fairly difficult. Nevertheless, I still managed to come up with a completely original design for each poem. I really liked how they all looked individually, but then when I put them up on the board, I'm not sure if they came out looking quite as nice as I'd planned. Still, I guess it's not too bad for my first try, right? Here's the finished product.

Oh, also, for those of you who might have been wondering, ListerX is back up and running smoothly. They had a major server crash, which is why they were down for so long. Still, I'm really excited about everything that's going on there right now because we have a new owner and he's really on top of things. Soon we're going to have a new, more efficiently run site and I can't wait! Not to say that the site we have now is terrible or anything, it's just going to be THAT much better! :) Also, I'm now officially a moderator, which is super cool for me because not only can I help the other mods stay on top of things, but I can add in my gi-normous collection of doujinshi, shitajiki, etc. myself instead of having to unload it on to someone else. LOL! ;) Anyway, that's it for now. I promise to get on the ball and try to write more often. Hopefully I'll have more time once school's out for the summer. Later!

Where to Find Lost & Missing Library Books

2006-03-18T22:21:00.000-08:00

We've all experienced it - the age-old scenario where the computer says a patron still has a book on their account which they, in turn, insist they turned in weeks ago. In fact, if you're anything like me you've probably done this a few times yourself. LOL! Well, now, with the help of an old photocopied list I obtained from my mom, I've created a selection of places to help your patrons find their lost library books. I've personally used this list on numerous occasions with a very high success rate. In one case, the patron had been looking for the book for almost 2 months and within a week of giving them this document, the book was back on my library's shelves. I would really like to give credit to the original mastermind behind this wonderful creation, but the paper given to me has no copyright information of any kind. So, if you recognize any of what you see (yes, I've done some heavy editing in some places) please let me know so I can give full credit where it's due.

With that said, I'd also like to remind you that this is very much a work in progress. If you have a place where you or a patron found their lost book that isn't on the list below, feel free to email me or leave a comment for this entry and I'll add it to the downloadable list.

Okay, now that all my talking's out of the way, here's the list. I hope you find it useful! :-)

Why Is It Always Me?

2006-03-12T03:09:00.000-08:00

*sigh* ListerX seems to be on the fritz for no explainable reason. I don't know how long it'll last, or when/if it'll be back up. My hope is soon, but who can say? Of course, it would crash RIGHT after I was offered a position as a content admin. . . Well, okay, semi-offered the position. I was actually waiting to hear back from someone when the site went down. Nevertheless, I'd love to be able to help out by doing more than just writing reviews! The updates have been slow lately because two of the current admins are shouldering most of the work. I'm hoping I can help lighten the load a bit, so they're not feeling quite so pressured when it comes to keeping things updated. So, anyway, this is just to say that my review links may not be working for an unknown period of time. When ListerX is back up and running, I'll definitely let y'all know. And if it goes on for too long, I'll find some extra webspace and upload them somewhere else so y'all will still have access.

On the job front, I still haven't quite started my full-time position yet. I've been trying to get the physical completed, but Fate keeps conspiring against me. My plan is to finish it up on Monday, so hopefully I'll hear from the library shortly afterwards. It's kind of weird in a sense because I'm still working my part-time job and that's never been the case before; it almost feels like it never really happened. LOL! Maybe I'm still in shock, since I honestly wasn't expecting to be offered the position in the first place. Anyway, considering I'm not quite out of school yet, the opportunity to work in the exact capacity I've always wanted (YA librarian) is a very big thrill! So, just keep you fingers crossed for me and we'll all hope for the best. :-)

New Sidebar Section

2006-03-08T00:05:00.001-08:00

Greetings! Just a small post today to say that I've added a new section to the sidebar on the left. It's a list of all my different reviews for ListerX.com. Of course I recommend all of the reviews found on the site, but I wanted to more prominently display my own contributions sort of as a way to show that I really DO know what I'm talking about. . . At least most of the time. LOL! :-)

It's called Common Courtesy

2006-03-03T01:23:00.000-08:00

Okay, I honestly didn't mean to start ranting so soon, but I have one issue that plagues me daily. So, if you commonly (or even uncommonly) frequent a library, especially a public one, then please listen carefully. We work for the city. We DO NOT get paid overtime. When the library is officially closed we STOP getting paid. Yes, even if there are still 10 patrons waiting to check out, the rest of that work is on OUR personal time. If we're supposed to work an 8 hour day then that's what goes on the time sheet. Yes, even if we didn't leave work until 30 minutes later. So please, I'm begging you, when your library announces that it's about to close, gather your things together and LEAVE. If you have items that need to be checked out DON'T wait until 5 minutes before closing. Have some respect for the people behind the counter.

I honestly hope this request doesn't sound selfish because I don't mean for it to, but I'm not talking about something that happens every once in a while. This scenario happens to me EVERY DAY. Those extra minutes add up really quick. In fact, in a typical week I lose at least $6 due to inconsiderate and/or uninformed patrons. And I only work 19 hours a week! Can you imagine how much the full-time staff is losing?!

True Story: It's 8:55 p.m. the library is closing in 5 minutes and a woman walks in with a laptop under her arm. Being flooded at the desk, no one had time to stop and tell here we were about to close. The woman proceeds to make her way to the back of the library, and sets up her laptop. If only there was a way to TURN OFF the wireless access! Five minutes later she's still on the computer. The closing announcement is made; the building is empty except for the employees and laptop lady. We spend another five minutes shutting down the Circulation computers and counting out our money. It's now 9:05 and the woman hasn't budged. The manager on duty walks over and tells her that we're closed and receives nothing but a very terse reply, "I'm thinking." Has this lady never heard of STARBUCKS, or BARNES & NOBLE, maybe?! Another ten minutes pass and it's now 9:15. It looks like she's starting to pack up. . . but wait, no, she's only getting out her cell phone to make a personal call. Good grief, does she have any manners at all?! Granted, the only people for her to annoy at the moment are staff members, but honestly! Finally she starts packing things up, all the while still talking on that stupid phone. She continues to talk as she heads for the door. . . and as she walks out into the lobby. Not once does she acknowledge any of the people standing behind the Circulation desk waiting only for her to leave. No "Thank you" or "I'm Sorry" as she strides out the door making absolutely no notice of anyone's presence except the person on the other end of the phone which she continues to yak away on. By the time the door is locked tight behind her it's almost 9:20! Of course, this is a worst case scenario. Most patrons DO at the very least apologize for keeping us late, which is always nice. . . but apologies don't put extra dollars on our paychecks.

So PLEASE the next time you go to your library, have some consideration for the people behind the desk; we have lives too, and they don't always revolve around our jobs.

The Beginning & an Explanation

2006-03-01T08:36:00.000-08:00

I've been a book lover nearly all of my life, mostly thanks to my parents, both of which are also book lovers and one of which is and has been a librarian for at least as long as I've been in the world (nearly 26 years.) So, when it got closer and closer to my college graduation and I still had no clue what I wanted to do with my BA in Digital Media, I decided to preserver through a few more years of school and get a Masters in Library Science. I'll be getting my degree in December with an emphasis in Youth Services and it's probably the best decision I've ever made. However, my love for art still remains; I'm a huge fan of graphic novels (i.e. comic books) as well as manga & manhwa (i.e. Japanese & Korean comics.) In fact, you might go so far as to say I'm obsessed with them. LOL! Thus the title of my blog - The Graphic Librarian. The layout you're viewing was created with the help of an awesome template maker I found on Blogskins.com. The image was created by yours truly and I can tell you right now that scanning all those graphic novel spines was a really big pain, but it makes the image look so much cooler, don't you think? :-D

Anyway, my main reason for starting this blog was as a way to keep a journal of my new career. I was recently offered my first full-time job in a library. Granted, it's not a professional position, but it's exactly what I was looking for in regards to my first real job. I'll be in charge of Young Adult programming and collection development (as well as corresponding with the Children's Librarian.) It's a really exciting prospect for me and I want to be able to document what goes on - not only for posterity (LOL!) but also for my own benefit later down the line. The job hasn't officially started yet, but in the meantime I can regale you with stories from my current library position as a Circulation Assistant at another library. I won't be naming names or locations in order to protect myself and others (mostly from embarrassment.) LOL! And if I DO name names, they'll be false ones.

I'll also be talking about any other random things that crop up here and there. For example, I write manga & manhwa reviews for ListerX.com which is lots of fun and a fabulous website if you need help keeping up with how much anime/manga stuff you own. I love it because I can keep up with ALL of my series - when they come out, when new things are being released, etc. and the people there are extremely helpful when it comes to learning about new stuff. I also maintain several web sites on a variety of subjects, which you can find in the side bar on the left.

Anyway, I'm really looking forward to keeping this blog, and I hope that those of you who've discovered it enjoy what I have to say. Til next time! :-)