Forum - View topicPublic Libraries and Manga
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SereneChaos
 Posts: 384 Location: Middle of Nowhere, USA |
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Libraries are a great way to legally and economically read manga. I'm lucky that mine has many of the ones I'm interested in reading and that they have tons of variety. Their catalog ranges from lesser knows/niche titles like Children of the Sea, A Bride's Story, and Cirque du Freak to the more popular ones like Black Butler, Death Note, and FullMetal Alchemist. And believe me, I take advantage of their selection. About 2/3 of the manga I read is through the library. I go there about once a week and always leave with at least a volume or two. And I'm not the only one. It seems like every time I go there someone is looking through the graphic novels. That peaked my curiosity about other libraries. Does your local library carry manga? If so, how large is their collection, and do you use it? If not, have you ever tried requesting some?
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glitchhunter
Posts: 37 Location: Perth, Western Australia |
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Mine carries a bit. I don't borrow it, because I like collecting the things I read. I donate the stuff I buy then don't like enough to keep collecting, though.
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ZepysGirl
 Posts: 470 Location: NY, NY |
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My library in my hometown has quite a bit of manga. In fact, pretty much every library I've ever been to in my life has had quite a bit of manga. Granted, I live in a major metropolitan area, so "not being in the boondocks" probably helps. Normally libraries have around 2-3 shelving units just for manga, so they cover all the popular series as well as the "library favorites" (graphic novel adaptions, other "good manga for teens").
My college library is a joke by comparison; obviously whoever's in charge of that knows of Tezuka--- and not much else. There's Buddha, Phoenix, Astro Boy... and Death Note, I think. There's also a random volume of the Only The Ring Finger Knows novel. 
I don't tend to use libraries for my manga-reading, though. At the moment it's just kind of inconvenient, and I'm much more of a collector anyways. I find it hard to convince myself to check out manga from a library when I still have so many of my own left to read.  In the past, borrowing from libraries has mainly helped when I was interested in starting a new series. If I liked it, I bought it. If I didn't, then no money wasted!
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Brainchild129
Posts: 307 |
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I'm really lucky, because my nearest library (which is in a small university-centered city) has a sizeable manga collection - indeed, it takes up about 2/3rds of a whole aisle. There's a lot of variety, and a lot of it is OOP (although most of that is due to stocking up on older works as they were released and having a lot of materials from now defunct companies). It's an incredible resource, even if a few books have clearly gone astray over the years, and I've discovered and read a lot of series through that library I might not be able to read otherwise (at least, not cheaply).
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SereneChaos
Posts: 384 Location: Middle of Nowhere, USA |
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My school's library is abysmal. Forget manga, it barely has any novels.
My library also has many volumes from Tokyopop, but I'm always afraid to read them because I don't know what's completed and what was abandoned. |
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Bright_Spear
Posts: 340 |
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edit
Last edited by Bright_Spear on Tue May 06, 2014 2:39 am; edited 1 time in total |
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littlegreenwolf
 Posts: 4796 Location: Seattle, WA |
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I go to the public library here (Boston's main library), and their manga section is huge and located around the teen section, and but you see missing numbers here and there. What cracks me up is I see most all of DMC right there for little kids to pick up whenever they want, and I laugh. I laugh and wonder if I should try explaining particular things to the librarians, but really I rather DMC stay right there and freak out someone.
My school is an art school with a comic focus, so they have a fantastic graphic novel section (golden age, DC, Marvel, Alan Moore, Indie, Little Nemo up the woozah). However, the manga selection is dismal, and I feel it's mainly because the professor who basically hand picks the selection has a bias against manga so we basically have a big volume of Inu Yasha, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, and Bleach. We however are building up a nice Tezuka selection, and we have a number of Barefoot Gen. I'm planning on donating/buying some Kaoru Mori and Ai Yazawa to give it more of a female touch before I leave the school. |
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Buster Blader 126
 Posts: 1207 Location: Mississauga, Ontario, Canada |
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My municipal library has a pretty decent collection. It has a good chunk of the popular titles, though it's missing critical popular titles at the moment, from Blue Exorcist to Black Butler to chunks of Fairy Tail to some of the ongoing Shojo Beat titles (Dengeki Daisy, Stepping on Roses, Kamisama Kiss).
I send monthly purchase requests to the library, with varying results. Large gaps in Hunter x Hunter, Higurashi, Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei and Kimi ni Todoke have been filled since. They may finally be filling in the gap between the flipped and unflipped volumes of Oh My Goddess! as well. Gaps in-between volumes and titles that they randomly stopped purchasing tend to be answered, though brand-new series purchases do not happen too often. In terms of "the good stuff," we have some of Phoenix, 20th Century Boys, Pluto and Vol. 1 of Princess Knight. They even purchased The Drops of God two months ago. My eternal library backlog has stalled the consumption of my own manga collection exponentially. I'm fortunate if I go through 20 volumes of my own books nowadays, with so much manga sitting on the library shelves. My current library backlog consists of Dr. Slump Vol. 10-13, the lowest it's ever been. I might actually squeeze in a volume or two from my collection before my 24 book holds for their July-August ongoing title purchases come in. |
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st_owly
 Posts: 5234 Location: Edinburgh, Scotland |
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My local library is terrible, but some of the more central libraries in the city are a bit better. The only complete series my local library has is Akira, which I did borrow. Other than that it just has a few random volumes of random series which are no use to anyone.
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misschidori
 Posts: 12 |
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My library has a large selection of genres, and while they don't hold many amazing titles, they do have a decent selection of manga. Oddly enough, the manga is placed in the "Teen" section. Luckily, I still look like a teenager, but I must say thank God there are places like Barnes & Noble where I can sit down with manga and not look out of place if people don't place me in my teens. A few of the titles they carry include Ouran High School Host Club, InuYasha, Love Hina, DBZ, Naruto, Fruits Basket and Rosario + Vampire. They sometimes add new titles, so whenever I stop by I check out the manga section. As of right now, I don't even know what "good stuff" they have, if any.
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 10032 Location: Virginia |
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I have a basic problem with libraries, they want you to give everything back and if I like something I want to keep it.
As a result I don't know if my local library has much.
They do have a manga club that meets there. However the librarian who runs it admits it is mostly teen and pre teen girls so I didn't join, I'm a guy and over 60 so I didn't think I would fit in. I did donate all my anthology magazines (Animerica Extra, Shojo Beat etc.). @misschidori Try not to let others bother you while following your hobby. I do get "looks" when I'm checking out the manga sections of book stores. I even had the guy who stocks anime at Best Buy ask if I knew what I was looking at when I was in the anime section. However, I figure that is their problem. |
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cards344
Posts: 3 |
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My library doesnt have much, i have started donating any mangas i ended up not liking that i couldnt sell to them.
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ambercrystal
Posts: 9 Location: Australia |
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All of the libraries near my house are pretty dreadful (not just with their manga), so I don't really visit them anyway. My uni library does have a decent collection apparently (my uni offers manga courses, and the manga teacher is very passionate), but as with many others, I do prefer purchasing my manga. That way I can read it at my own pace, and reread it whenever I would like.
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Spotlesseden
Posts: 3514 Location: earth |
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King County library system(like 30 to 40 libraries) have all the manga that i need. I don't need to buy any manga at all. If they don't have certain vol in your city, you can order it to send to your library without any fee.
Some manga vol have like 10+ copies. Like naruto vol 1 has 25 copies. They even have a reasonable of anime dvd selections and light novels. some titles are very competitive. i have been trying to get L change the World dvd for almost two years now. lol https://catalog.kcls.org/eg/opac/record/720854?qtype=keyword;query=death%20note;page=0;loc=1 |
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Dessa
 Posts: 4438 |
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Dang, didn't realize KCLS had so many libraries... 48 of 'em. And, within KCLS's area is Seattle Public Library, with 27 branches within the city limits. And Sno-Isle, just north, with 21. And all three systems have tons of manga.
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