Improving Access to Graphic Novels Through Tagging

Wendy West, “Tag, You’re It: Enhancing Access to Graphic Novels,” portal: Libraries and the Academy 13:3 (2013): 301-324.

Graphic novels are all the rage and increasingly being collected by academic libraries. Author Wendy West considers the question of access to graphic novels in this thoughtful paper. West investigates the use of subject terms, whether supplied by catalogers or users, in records for 59 popular and highly rated graphic novels in 38 Association of Research Libraries’ online catalogs or search interfaces that allow “tagging” (i.e., assigning of subject terms by a user). She found that such practices increased the circulation of graphic novels; however, “their use is limited across the study’s library population.” (p. 314) West concludes by proposing a broadening of these practices in the next generation of library catalogs, and suggests additional research on what motivates academic library users to tag.