When I started a position at the University of South Florida I was shared between their School of Information and the Zimmerman School of Mass Communication. My position was intended to improve Visual Communication in both schools. I knew the two directions my research efforts would go immediately, comic books (as a way of looking at the history of Visual Communication) and 3D information visualization (as a way for looking forward in the field).
Since my headquarters was in Library Science I began with a survey of research on Comic Books in librarianship. My undergraduate degree in Mathematics makes me tend to analyze things numerically, and the obvious question I could not find answer to was how many libraries have comic books? The literature was primarily about the challenges of comic books in library collections, they are flimsier than magazines and all comic books go under the same number in the Dewey Decimal System.
I could not find a citation telling me a number or approximation of how many American public libraries have graphic novels in their collections.
Careers are long and there certainly existed a small subset of librarians with a dislike of comic books. (Science tells us that the vast majority of librarians are awesome) Could ten percent of America's libraries be run by librarians who do not consider reading comic books to actually be reading? The academic literature did not have an answer! I saw this an an opportunity for research.
I asked around 100 collection specialists at public libraries across the country about comic books in their library. The graph at the top is a synthesis of my research results with a DC Comics press and advertising statement about their "New 52" reboot of their comic book line. When I saw DC's age demographic breakdown it struck me how different it was than what the librarians told me. Librarians described a wide range of comic book reader ages, but most around 15-18. DC's data from Nielsen shows a much narrower age range that is 10-20 years older than the library patrons. Comic book stores are not competing with libraries.
The real result of my research is that comic book scholars can write "nearly all American public libraries have graphic novels or comic books in their collection" and cite my paper. The people who have cited this research commonly are talking about collection methods for comic books and graphic novels, and therefore can use their existence in virtually all public libraries as rationale for their cataloging discussion.
