New eCourse—Graphic Novels for Adults: Readers’ Advisory and Collection Development

Chicago—ALA Publishing eLearning Solutions announces a new facilitated eCourse, Graphic Novels for Adults: Readers’ Advisory and Collection Development. Francisca Goldsmith will serve as the instructor for a 4-week facilitated eCourse starting on Monday, April 9, 2018.

Despite the popular view that graphic novels are for kids and teenagers, the majority of them are written for adult audiences. If you’re not familiar with this growing area of library collections, it’s time to get started.

In this eCourse, user services and graphic novel expert Francisca Goldsmith shows you how to develop great collections and provide useful readers’ advisory services from a graphic arts collection. You’ll learn about different facets of graphic novels, from how they are produced to how they are cataloged.

eCourse outline

Week 1 addresses sequential art concerns ranging from aesthetics to taxonomy and includes opportunities to inventory current holdings, attitudes, and capacities.

Week 2 engages participants in exploring specific facets of comics and adult readers, including autodidacts pursuing insights on sciences and other sophisticated studies; health and wellness; genre fiction such as science fiction, romance, and thriller options and interests.

Week 3 features passive advisory methods for graphic novel promotion with adult readers, including displays, cataloging, and cross-format appeals lists. Online resources are also explored for collection development and presentation models.

Week 4 moves to active advisory practices with adults: interviewing techniques that allow visual interests to surface; programming for creators as well as readers; and more online resources to support active advisory work.

About the Instructor

Francisca Goldsmith has worked in public and academic libraries across North America for more than 25 years before becoming a full-time library staff development consultant and instructor. Recently, her focus has been on supporting public library staff and administrators in responding to community needs for access to healthcare information and expanding librarian and educator awareness of multi-modal literacy needs in both youth and adult communities. Her library experience and consulting includes frontline reference work, collection management, branch services management, and teen services development and advocacy. She is the author of The Readers' Advisory Guide to Graphic Novels, Second Edition (ALA Editions, 2017).

Registration for this ALA Publishing eLearning Solutions facilitated eCourse, which begins on April 9, 2018, can be purchased at the ALA Store. Participants in this course will need regular access to a computer with an internet connection for online message board participation, viewing online video, listening to streaming audio (MP3 files), and downloading and viewing PDF and PowerPoint files.

ALA Publishing eLearning Solutions (ELS) produces high-quality professional development events and materials for the library profession. ELS events cover modern issues on a wide variety of topics in formats that include live workshops, asynchronous eCourses, and print publications. We help ensure that today’s library employees have access to the professional development opportunities they need, whether they are brushing up on the basics or expanding their horizons with cutting-edge tools. Contact us at elsmarketing@ala.org.

ALA Store purchases fund advocacy, awareness, and accreditation programs for library professionals worldwide.