Maybe it was the 9 years of catholic school complete with nuns, some in habits. Maybe it was being the youngest and only girl in a litter of 6. Maybe I'm just contrary by nature. Maybe it was doing library work for years in a state of total ignorance.
Whatever. I refuse to put Maus in 741 OR 940! 'Tis not a comic book nor non-fiction on the Holocaust, which was not about cats killing mice, as my daughter so helpfully points out.
So, yes. Lots of "must"s and "must not"s and "should"s and "should never!"s but at the end of the day, it is, on some level, MY library. My responsibility is to know my community (teachers, students, staff, parents) and provide the best collection and access possible with an eye toward moving my students forward in the development of their info lit skills, within the confines of a tight budget.
With that in mind, Maus will stay, with the rest of the graphic novels, in their very own section, adjacent to the fiction section, with their very own spine: GRA/aut. Will it destroy their ability to find American Born Chinese in their college library? Gosh, I hope by then that they have the navigational and info lit skills to discover it elsewhere!
I hear you barking, hound dog! I also have a GN section where I put everything that falls under that category. A lot of kid just want something with pictures and will pick up MAUS or METAMORPHOSES or SCOTT PILGRIM and don't really care about the content. I also get frustrated with myself when I find Bloom's Literary Guide to ANNE FRANK in the 940s and vow to re-catalog it every time. But do I remember? Alas, no...
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