ALIA Graphic: Let’s Get Practical: Answering all Your Questions Webinar 2023

 

The ALIA Graphic team is pleased to announce this year's webinar. We get many questions emailed to us by librarians and library staff across the country about the different factions of the graphic novel and comic world. So we thought that this year we would spend the time hearing from you and providing answers to those questions that you may have been wanting to ask for a while. 

As a team we want to bring awareness and positivity to graphic novels and comics being an integral part of all library collections. We understand that people still have some hesitation, are unsure about the format or knowing how best to have them within your collections. Across our team we have a wide range of interests within the genre from junior, adult, manga or webcomic. Be assured that whatever question you have we will do our best to answer it.

When: Thursday November 16

Time: 2pm AEDT

Duration: 1 hour

Registration via Zoom

To submit a question for the team to answer please follow this link and your questions will remain anonymous: Let’s Get Practical: Answering all Your Questions Google Form 

Even if you can not make it on the day please send us through your questions. As the webinar will be recorded you will be able to hear our reactions and answers when the session becomes available.

If you have any general questions about the webinar please email: aliagraphicinfo@gmail.com

ALIA CPD Hours

If you are a member of the ALIA PD Scheme or Proficiency Recognition Program (PRP) you can log and reflect on your time spent engaging with ALIA Virtual Showcases for PD hours. There is no cap on the number of hours you can claim - the total is simply the number of hours that you can spend actively learning and engaging in the conference content. This will vary from person to person. Any PD questions can be sent to pd@alia.org.au.

Webinar Announcement: Nurturing and Inspiring Reading and Creativity With Comics and Manga

A year ago we had our first ALIA Graphic webinar (which is still available to watch our YouTube page) and we thought we'd gather together again this year.

We are excited to have four amazing speakers to talk about all things comics and manga. In this webinar we will focus on Junior and YA comics and manga. We will explore how they nurture life long readers and inspire creativity. As usual, our webinar will be on Zoom and it will be free.

Hosted by ALIA Graphic Convenor Iurgi Urrutia, we’re pleased to announce four incredibly exciting speakers.

Gabby Cundy has been an ALIA Graphic team member since its inception. She’s situated in Western Sydney where she currently works as a Branch Librarian. Previously she has worked in a school library where she first developed a love of Children’s and YA literature. Recently she presented at the Illawarra School Library Association conference about embracing comics and graphic novels in school libraries. Earlier this year she  completed her Masters of Information Studies specialising in Children’s Literature. She can always be found with a book close by with the majority of those being new release YA novels and Middle Grade graphic novels. Helping children and teenagers find a book that they fall in love with is what she wants to do for the rest of her career.

Follow Gabby on Twitter: @GabzzC

Elizabeth Marruffo and Campbell Whyte are the creative minds behind Milktooth Arts Space, a school of art and comics, based in Perth. They believe that all children are naturally creative and they see it as their job to nurture and inspire that creativity through painting, sculpting, textiles, comics and illustration. They run long term courses and school holiday workshops. They are also artists and comic book creators in their own right. Elizabeth has been a sessional lecturer in painting at Edith Cowan University, a finalist in numerous national painting awards including The Portia Geach Memorial Prize and is working on her first graphic novel, Pup Pup Is the Boss of the Stars, a story inspired by the small towns of Agua Prieta and Magdalena in Mexico, where she grew up. Campbell Whyte has published several short comics and two volumes of Home Time published by Top Shelf, which received lots of recognition and awards, including being nominated at the Eisner Awards 2018 in the Best Publication for Kids Ages 9-12 category. They both also co-founded the Perth Comic Arts Festival - a volunteer run and 100% free to attend celebration of local comics talent. Check out Milktooth’s website here: https://milk-tooth.com 

Jillian Rudes is the school librarian at a 6th-12th grade, public school in New York City. She is the Japanese Culture & Manga Librarian for the New York City Department of Education, as well as, the founder and director of Manga in Libraries. She received the American Association of School Librarians’ Collaborative School Library Award in 2020 and the American Library Association's Scholastic Library Publishing Award in 2022. She was also deemed the “Manga Maven” by Library Journal and selected as Mover & Shaker in 2022. She has presented on manga at New York Comic Con, San Diego Comic Con, the American Library Association’s Annual Conference, the International Association of School Librarianship’s Annual Conference, and more. You can find a ton of resources on her website MangaInLibraries.com. Follow Jillian on Twitter: @JRlibrarian

Are you ready to sign up? Registration is totally free. Please note, the event will be recorded for those who cannot attend live. The recording will be made available after the event(give us a few days).

When: Wednesday November 30 at 12pm AEDT

Zoom registration: Webinar registration here

Duration: 1 hour

Please direct any questions about the webinar to our email address: aliagraphicinfo@gmail.com

ALIA CPD Hours

If you are a member of the ALIA PD Scheme or Proficiency Recognition Program (PRP) you can log and reflect on your time spent engaging with ALIA Virtual Showcases for PD hours. There is no cap on the number of hours you can claim - the total is simply the number of hours that you can spend actively learning and engaging in the conference content. This will vary from person to person. Any PD questions can be sent to pd@alia.org.au

Let's talk comic book bans and challenges

Unfortunately we have to talk about challenges, bans and censorship of comics and graphic novels. This is not something we'd like to talk about but it's an important conversation and there are some uncomfortable truths we must face.

In this special podcast episode, we discuss challenges and bans to books and specifically to comics in libraries across the United States of America. 

Looking from a distance, the current wave of challenges and bans the US is going through seems alien to us. We are concerned about what’s going on. We are concerned that teachers and librarians are being targeted and intimidated. 

We are concerned that comics, graphic novels, and books are being pulled off the shelves. Even titles that have won awards, have received world wide recognition and have been part of the curriculum for years. 

We’ve been concerned for months and we have shared our support and solidarity with our American colleagues. But, of course, to be concerned from a distance is not enough. 

While we may feel that what’s happening has nothing to do with us in Australia, we know that very often these kind of actions get exported to other countries. It could happen in Australia and we should not be complacent.

We’re also aware that while we don’t suffer the kind of challenges that we’re seeing in the US, there are still issues in Australia. Teachers and librarians who are prejudiced against comics. Parents who question their kids and insist that they read a 'real' book.

But reading is reading and reading comics we use multiple literacies, we use more parts of our brain. 

We wanted to reach out to our friends in the American Library Association’s Graphic Novels and Comics Roundtable. Specifically, we wanted to talk with members of the Addressing Comic Book Bans & Challenges Committee. We had a great discussion with Amie Wright chair of the committee, together with Kara Baker, Shawn Norton and Julia Lanter.

Iurgi Urrutia from Kingston Libraries in Victoria and James Baker from the Athenaeum Library in Melbourne hosted this wide ranging, and we believe, very relevant conversation.

You can listen to this really special podcast episode on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts, right now. Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast and leave us a glowing review, every review helps and it will also leave you with a warm and fuzzy feeling - totally guaranteed!

Finally, don't forget that our Graphic Novel Club session this month is all about challenged and banned comics. As always, the Graphic Novel Club session will be on Zoom and it's totally free. A great way to have a great discussion about comics and do some PD at the same time. All the details including the Zoom registration link are here. Please note, you don't need to read all three comics to join the discussion. They're just recommendations. 

Episode Notes: 

GNCRT Toolkit: https://www.ala.org/rt/gncrt/preparing-and-addressing-challenges-comics-library-committee

GNCRT Checklist: https://www.ala.org/rt/sites/ala.org.rt/files/content/GNCRT/ComicsChallenges/GNCRT%20Be%20Prepared%20Postcard_PRINT.pdf 

GNCRT Survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScY2TYLrurWP6sT9ifMSsne-98AEYJylUTDUgBvWB3n1RJtJA/viewform 

No Flying No Tights: Ask the Comics Librarians series of articles: https://noflyingnotights.com/browse-our-ask-the-comics-librarians-columns/ 

‘Divisive Concepts Law’ New Hampshire - op-ed piece on the impact of the law in classrooms and on teachers https://newhampshirebulletin.com/2021/08/10/commentary-new-hampshires-divisive-concepts-law-and-the-big-chill/ 

History of Comics Censorship in the United States via CBLDF https://cbldf.org/resources/history-of-comics-censorship/ 

History of Comics Censorship in Canada via Ryerson University 1950s - “Crisis of Innocence: Comic Books and Children’s Culture, 1940-1954” https://crisisofinnocence.library.ryerson.ca/exhibits/show/a-crisis-of-innocence

Jason Reynolds When I was the Greatest https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/When-I-Was-the-Greatest/Jason-Reynolds/9781442459496 

Fobazi Ettarh, "Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves." In the Library with the Lead Pipe. January 10, 2018. www.inthelibrarywiththeleadpipe.org/2018/vocational-awe/ 

American Academy of Pediatrics and Gender Affirming Care: https://publications.aap.org/aapnews/news/19021/AAP-continues-to-support-care-of-transgender?autologincheck=redirected?nfToken=00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 

ACLU American Civil Liberties Union - advocacy on fighting book bans https://www.aclu.org/issues/free-speech/artistic-expression/banned-books 

ALIA Graphic Novel Club 2022

While we have been fairly quiet and enjoying some time off during the summer holidays, ALIA Graphic Novels and Comics will be back soon with roundups, podcasts and the Graphic Novel Club. We tried this program in the second half of last year and were really happy with it so we decided we will do it all year-round. 

The program is designed for librarians in general; public, school, academic, etc., professionals interested in graphic novels. The sessions are a mix of what you would expect in a book club and a more formal PD session. If you're doing the ALIA PD Scheme, our Graphic Novel Club sessions can be used towards your PD goal.

While we like to keep it fairly informal, each month we will have a theme and three recommended graphic novels (you don't need to read all of them - think of them as reading suggestions that fit that theme), then we discuss the suggested titles, how they relate to the theme, and what other titles we could recommend in a library setting.

We are happy to announce that our January Graphic Novel Club session is the first thing on our program for this year. Join us Sunday 23 January at 3pm for an informal catch up where we'll talk about the graphic novels we've been reading, our favourites from last year and comics readers advisory in general.

We can also announce the themes and suggested titles for the first half of the year so you can check if your library has our suggested graphic novels, and where else to source them. Please note that all of our Graphic Novel Club sessions are free and online on Zoom. If you're registered but unable to join the session live, you will receive a private link with a recording a few days after the date.

To check out our program for the year and to register for all the sessions please visit our Graphic Novel section of the blog. We look forward to seeing you at the Graphic Novel Club and also providing more news, PD and graphic novel information and resources to you very soon!

Getting Graphic Comics Around the World Webinar

We want to thank our speakers at yesterday's webinar. It was our first live webinar and it went really well. Thank you, also, to all the participants for all their comments and all the sharing in the chat. 

We look forward to more webinars next year and if you have any topics or ideas for webinars and things that should be covered, let us know through Facebook, Twitter, or email.

Here's the promised recording of the webinar, which can be found on our YouTube channel if you'd like to subscribe to it. If you prefer an audio only podcast version of the recording you can access it here.

To download a couple of documents with links for resources/websites that were shared by our speakers and participants follow this link to our Google Drive. You can also find out more about Graphic Medicine here.

ALIA Graphic presents: Getting Graphic: Comics Around the World

We thought we'd try something new before the end of the year and we're very proud to announce our very first live webinar. Every library needs a graphic novels champion. In this webinar we'll look at comics around the world. We'll learn about the history of Australian comics. We'll hear from the president of the American Library association's Graphic Novels and Comics Roundtable. We'll be introduced to what graphic medicine and why it's growing so rapidly and we'll also even discuss the contentious issue of cataloguing and shelving comics. 

Our first live ALIA Graphic webinar will be the perfect introduction for librarians and educators wanting to know more about comics and graphic novels around the world and in Australia. Hosted by ALIA Graphic Convenor and Iurgi Urrutia (Kingston Libraries, Victoria) who will be giving an overview of comics around the world, we’re pleased to announce three exciting speakers:

Daniel Best is an Australian comics historian and author with a vast knowledge of Australian comics history. Australia has had, and still has nowadays, a great range of comic creators that have usually gone under the radar. Daniel will give us an overview of the history of Australian comics.

Tara Eagleton is the Library Services Collections Officer at Wollondilly Library, NSW. Tara will discuss one of the ongoing, perennial, contentious issues around comics at libraries: how to best catalogue and shelf them. Different libraries do it differently, but one thing’s for sure, comics present challenges and the general rules don’t apply. Tara will present some guidelines and a framework. 

Matthew Noe is the President of the American Library Association's Graphic Novels and Comics Roundtable, he’s an academic librarian and a champion of graphic medicine. Matthew will join us live from the US to talk about the GNCRT, their past achievements, current programs and future plans. Matthew will also talk about graphic medicine, a fast growing movement and genre with comics that explore and contain narratives associated to healthcare. Comics are a very accessible and powerful medium for graphic medicine.

Thursday October 14 at 1pm AEDT (online - registration required)

Duration: 1 hour

Register for the free webinar now.

ALIA CPD Scheme Hours

If you are a member of the ALIA PD Scheme or Proficiency Recognition Program (PRP) you can log and reflect on your time spent engaging with ALIA Virtual Showcases for PD hours. There is no cap on the number of hours you can claim - the total is simply the number of hours that you can spend actively learning and engaging in the conference content. This will vary from person to person.

Talking Manga with Ashley Hawkins

ALIA Graphic's Tara talks to our second international guest, Ashley Hawkins otherwise known as @MangaLibrarian on Twitter. They discuss different types of Manga, the different ratings, collection development and shelving.

Ashley also suggests lots of great titles for different age brackets. 

You can follow Ashley on her blog: https://mangalibrarian.com and Twitter.

If you like what we're doing, hit the subscribe button on our YouTube channel to stay up to date with our chats. You can also follow us on Twitter and don't forget to check our blog for updates, monthly roundups of news and new release titles. You can also subscribe to our blog and receive an email every time we post (a couple of times a month).

Remember that all our video chats are also released as podcasts. We also publish more content as podcast only so please subscribe to the ALIA Graphic Podcast.

These are the titles recommended in the video by Ashley.

Jnr readers ( 5-10)

Chi’s Sweet Home

Yokai Watch

Middle grade 10-12 yrs

Must have shonen: My Hero Academia (early volumes)

Must have shojo: Kitchen Princess, Flying Witch

New titles to look out for:

Yotsuba&! Is coming back

Penguin & House by Akiho Ieda

Teens 13 - 16

Must have shonen: Case Study of Vanitas

Must have shojo: Horimiya, The White Cat's Revenge as Plotted from the Dragon King's Lap

New titles to look out for: 

Play It Cool, Guys, Blue Period, Hello, I am a Witch and my Crush Wants me to Make a Love Potion! 

Older teens

Must have shonen: Chainsaw Man

Must have shojo: A Sign of Affection

New titles to look out for: 

My Dad is the Queen of All VTubers?!, Chasing After Aoi Koshiba, I Was Reincarnated as the Villainess in an Otome Game but the Boys Love Me Anyway!

Mature/Adult

Life Lessons with Uramichi Oniisan, Eniale & Dewiela, Our Fake Marriage, Perfect World, Way of the Househusband, Escape Journey

New titles: 

They Were Eleven (2022), Lil Leo

Light novel suggestions for purchase

Marielle Clarac

Full Metal Panic

I'm in Love with the Villainess

My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!!

Bottom-Tier Character Tomozaki

I Have a Secret (by author of I Want to Eat Your Pancreas)

Teaching With Comics, with Tim Smyth

In this episode we chat with Tim Smyth, a Social Studies secondary school teacher from the east coast of the US, our first international guest, who's been using comics and graphic novels as teaching tools for years. 

We discuss how he got into comics, what made him start using them in the classroom, the great benefits of comics in teaching literacy and Tim gives us some of his top tips for teachers who are thinking of starting to use comics in the classroom.

You can find out more about Tim and his teaching resources, which he makes freely available online, on his website: http://www.historycomics.net​ 

If you like what we're doing, hit the subscribe button on our YouTube channel to stay up to date with our chats. 

You can also follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ALIAGraphic​.

GNCRT / ALIA Graphic Crossover Event: Comics Librarians Talk Shop Across the World

The first Crossover Event between the ALA's Graphic Novels and Comics Roundtable and ALIA's Graphic Novels and Comics group was a success. We had lots of people joining the webinar live and now you can access the recording on the American Library Association's YouTube page.

"Join librarians around the world as they discuss comic books/graphic novels and what they mean for libraries. We will talk shop about collection development, the impact of comics across different types of libraries, and the brand new reading lists being created by the Graphic Novels and Comics Round Table as well as monthly round up lists created by ALIA Graphic. 

We will also talk about - with physical libraries being closed - how each of us and our libraries are continuing to serve our communities during a time of crisis - how we each are ‘finding our place at the library’ virtually and through our #LibcomixOnline communities. For more information on GNCRT and our #LibcomixOnline initiatives, please visit: http://www.ala.org/rt/gncrt/libcomix-online

We're going #LibComixOnline

Library buildings are closed. Schools are closed. Conventions and book launches have been cancelled.

As everyone scrambles to move their services online and attempts to figure out what to do during social isolation, we thought this was an opportunity to try something new.

The American Library Association's Graphic Novels and Comics Roundtable(GNCRT) has announced an online initiative that "will spotlight online comic reading and recommendations, resources and toolkits, and other #libcomix content virtually through #LibComixOnline. These series of events and spotlighted resources will feature live streamed webinars, recorded interviews and discussions with some of our favourite creators, stores, and libraries plus virtual brainstorming sessions, and maybe even a few live draws or virtual art drops."

We are very proud to announce that ALIA Graphic Novels and Comics is joining the GNCRT on this project. We will, of course, share the content they create and publish but we will also create some content of our own and, even better, some content in collaboration with them.

These are some of the planned events that we will roll out in the coming weeks:

• Compile and share comics related resources for everyone who's staying at home (printables, learning activities, etc) 
• Recorded interviews and creator meet ups with some of our favourite Australian creators
• Webinars for librarians on different aspects of comics librarianship
• Live drawing parties online 

Best of all, there will be some crossover ALIA Graphic & GNCRT events with Australian comics creators speaking with creators from the US and Canada. 

We already have three Australian creators confirmed and it's fair to say that we're very excited!

The #LibComixOnline tab on our page will be updated regularly and we'll keep you posted as soon as we have more details.

The first event has already been announced and should not be missed:

April 1: Collection Development and Readers' Advisory with GNCRT President Amie Wright and special guest. The discussion will cover new and upcoming titles, recommended back issues and best practices. Attendees can weigh in with their faves or ask for advice.