Want to Keep People Away from the Library?

Here's one way to do it:

First of all, this did not happen in the library system where I work, but in another county. (If you know where I live, it's not hard to figure out.) Second, I write this not so much to rant (although I probably will), but to question policies that, to put it as kindly as I can, make no sense.

I was walking through said library, mainly looking for new audiobooks and new YA titles. Finding nothing much new in the adult and YA audiobook sections, I walked into the Children's section and found a few J-Fic titles on audio. Then I saw the Graphic Novels in the Children's area and gave them a look. Again, I'd just picked up three J-Fic audiobooks, so I thought I'd take another look at the YA graphic novels, then the adult (seeking a little balance, ya know).

I saw a few interesting books in the YA graphic novel section, but nothing we don't already have at home, so I went to the adult graphic novel section.

There wasn't one.

I went to the Info. Desk and asked the lady behind the desk where to find the adult graphic novels. She smiled. "It won't be easy. Let me show you."

She takes me to the end of the adult hardcover fiction and starts scanning the bottom shelves. "Like I said, it's not easy...." She bent down to find several copies of The Walking Dead, Book 3, filed under W. Nothing else was on the bottom shelf.

"So all the graphic novels are on the bottom shelf?" I said.

"Oh no, that would be too easy," she said. "Look for the little (Translation: tiny) red 'graphic novel' label along the spine. They're all mixed in with the fiction."

"That's insane," I said.

The librarian nodded, like she'd heard this every day of her life. "Tell me about it. It makes no sense at all." She kept hanging around, apologizing for something that wasn't her fault and I told her not to worry about it, I just wanted to browse anyway.

It gets better. I started at A and found a graphic novel version of Paul Auster's City of Glass, which I'd just finished as part of Auster's New York Trilogy. But wait a minute. The Walking Dead was filed under W and the author is Kirkman.

I kept looking, finding about one graphic novel per forty or fifty books, sometimes filed by author's last name, sometimes filed under the first letter in the title.

So tell me why in the world would you not separate your adult graphic novels if you do so with children's and YA? There were plenty to fill a shelving unit. Why would a library not do this? Laziness? Some other reason?

Okay, here's the rant. Sorry, couldn't help it. Does this library realize how enormously popular graphic novels have become? Does it realize that graphic novels are the only books that some teens (and maybe adults, too) will willingly read? Don't you want to bring those people into the library? Don't you want to take advantage of any tool you can use to get people reading more?

It was obvious I wasn't the first person to ask this librarian this question. She'd been through it before and she'll go through it again unless something changes. Want to keep people out of libraries? Do two things: Purchase items they have no interest in reading. Then place the items they are interested in reading where they'll never find them. Then shut off your computers for a day or two and let me know your door count numbers.