As a future young adult librarian, I believe that all forms of literacy, no matter their subject matter or printed form, are valuable to all librarians, including graphic novels and manga, as they can be used a sort of “gateway” into true books. Because there are many different types of subjects that manga cover, you can easily lead the reader to other types of novels or stories that match their general interest. Reading can be fun and graphic novels and manga help to prove this.

But what exactly is manga? The Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan[1] states that “Manga is the Japanese word for comic strips and comic books (both the humorous and the serious kind), but it is also used to refer to caricatures, cartoons, and comic drawings in general.” So then manga is comics right? Not exactly. In the U.S., the majority of comic books published are stories about super-powered men in tights with amazing powers and whose stories are mostly read by young boys and a small, but dedicated, following of adult men. Not so with manga. Matt Thorn, an Associate Professor in the School of Manga Production at Kyoto Seika University, writes in his essay “Unlikely Explorers: Alternative Narratives Of Love, Sex, Gender, and Friendship In Japanese 'Girls'' Comics"”[2]:

“Contrast this with Japan, where one-third of all publications are some form of manga; where the best selling manga magazine—which is far and away the best selling magazine of any kind in Japan—claims a circulation of over six million; where about a third of Japanese in their thirties, half of those in their twenties, and nearly seventy percent of those between sixteen and nineteen years of age say they like manga; where about forty percent of all Japanese sixteen or older read manga regularly; and where subject matter runs the gamut from history and science fiction to gourmet cooking and golf Manga has become so widely read by all ages that the Japanese Government has taken to publishing some of their informational pamphlets into manga form.”

His essay was written in 1993, but manga in Japan still remains big business. In Japan, the manga market grosses approximately $4.7 billion each year. In the U.S., manga is a $110 million a year industry and has shown a double-digit growth for the past three years[3].

But what do these numbers mean? I feel that since manga is becoming a huge trend in today’s popular culture, libraries will have to keep up as well if they want to hold the interests of their patrons. It is with this in mind that this bibliography plan is also designed to help inform librarians on useful sources in this subject area as well as help them in starting there own manga collection in their libraries. As such, all my materials compiled will be written in English.

Also, the style manual for all citations in this paper is Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations[4].

Search Strategies

Library Catalogs

Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH)[5]

The following LCSH subject headings would be relevant to this topic:

PN6790.J3 Graphic novels – Japan

PN6790.J3 Graphic novels – Japan – Translations into English

PN6790.J3 Comic books, strips, etc. – Japan – History and criticism

PN6790.J3 Comic books, strips, etc. – Japan – Translations into English

I first searched the LCSH for the term “MANGA.” I had a feeling I wouldn’t find it and I was right. I then thought to look up the term “GRAPHIC NOVELS.” However, this term is mostly used for manga that is translated into English and is not necessarily a subject heading for books on manga. As for the last two terms, what I did was look for a book on manga and find out what subject heading term it was labeled under. Once I got a useable subject heading, I also looked down the list to see if there were any other terms that would be useful in my searches.

While all LCSH headings all seem to have the same call numbers, not all the every book that have these call numbers are the same type. For instance, books with the subject heading “Graphic novels – Japan” or “Comic books, strips, etc. – Japan – Translations into English” are Japanese manga that have been translated into English, while books with the subject heading “Comic books, strips, etc. – Japan – History and criticism” are books about manga written in either English or another language.

UH Voyager[6]

When I searched through the Voyager Catalog I found that there were not as many books on this subject as I would like to have seen. I originally did a keyword search for “MANGA” which netted me 156 results. However, a majority of the books were unusable to my topic as they were written in another language or they were about a different type of “MANGA.” Apparently, “MANGA” is also the name of a sub-group of the Kanuri people who live in Africa. I also got listings of DVD’s of anime, which were originally stories based on manga, entries of books on how to draw manga, and entries of actual manga that had been translated into English. The best thing for me was to find a book that was relevant to my topic and search it’s subject headings. Doing that, I found the term “Comic books, strips, etc. – Japan – History and criticism” which lead me to books that were highly relevant to my topic. A few such books were Watching anime, reading manga: 25 years of essays and reviews[7] and Manga: sixty years of Japanese comics[8].

Hawaii State Public Library Catalog (HSPL)[9]

I again started my search with a general keyword search using the term “MANGA” and got 1045 results. The list was very much like the one I received from UH Voyager when I did the same search there as I got a mixture of irrelevant and relevant items. The next search I tried was to search for a book I had already gotten from Voyager to see if HSPL also had it. If it did, I would then use HSPL subject heading to aid my search. Doing so, I found that HSPL also used the subject heading “Comic books, strips, etc. -- Japan -- History and criticism.” Actually, HSPL had less titles on this topic then UH Voyager though its list of 7 titles included one that Hamilton library did not have, which I found to be quite useful: Anime interviews: the first five years of Animerica, anime & Manga monthly (1992-97)[10].

Online Reference Sources

The Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan

I feel that this resource is one of the first resources you should look in for information concerning things Japanese. Using the browse function, I found the entry article for “MANGA.” While the article was brief, it did give an overview of pre-modern and modern manga as well as links to related articles. Of course, for something with really in-depth information on manga, I would suggest a book such as those found through the UH Voyager Catalog or those found in the HSPL Catalog.

Encyclopedia Britannica Online

Because I wanted a good general resource on manga from the Western world point-of-view, I felt that using an encyclopedia would be helpful. Unfortunately, Encyclopedia Britannica has little to no information on the subject of manga. Using the index, I managed to find one article in which the term “MANGA” was referenced, but it was only used in passing. Doing a keyword search for “MANGA” gave me 36 results but nothing that was truly relevant to my topic. Most of the articles had nothing to do with Japanese comics. Interesting enough though, there were articles about famous manga authors such as Yokoyama, Mitsuteru[11] and Uchida, Shungiku[12].

The Grove Art Online[13]

I first tried to look in the index of this database for anything on manga, but there was no entry. I then decided to try a keyword search using the word “MANGA” which got me 16 results. However, most of the results were useless to me and the few that may have seemed promising, when looked at, turned out to contain just a passing reference to manga. I think because manga is not truly considered an art form, at least currently and in the western world, there would not be many articles in this database on it.

Databases

I am listing the databases I used in alphabetical order.

Academic Search Premier[14]

Using the thesaurus, I managed to find the term “MANGA (Comic books)”. Just using that term netted me 89 results. One of the articles it found was Understanding the manga hype: Uncovering the multimodality of comic-book literacies[15] which was interesting as the author talked about how one could use manga for educational purposes, still it was only slightly relevant to my subject. Since, I did want to find articles that focus more on manga and teenagers, I looked through the thesaurus again and I found the term “COMIC books & teenagers.” Using “COMIC books & teenagers” OR “MANGA (Comic books)” I got 98 results. While a majority of the results had to do with manga, not all them were relevant to my topic. I wanted to find articles that dealt with manga in libraries so I also tried, “YOUNG adult services librarians” AND “MANGA (Comic books)” and received only 1 result. However, it was an extremely relevant article to my subject.

Bibliography of Asian Studies (BAS)[16]

I began my search of the database with a keyword search of MANGA. I got a good number of results, 70 to be exact, though I must admit that not all were relevant. However, this led me to gather several subject headings that were extremely useful when searching this database:

Japan – Arts – Prints & Drawings -- 532 results

Japan – Communication & Media -- 437 results

Japan – Anthropology & Sociology. -- 1929 results

I then used a combination of the subject heading “Arts – Prints & Drawings” AND keyword “MANGA” and got 46 results which turned out to be only somewhat relevant to my search. After that I also tried another search with using the subject “Japan” AND keyword “MANGA” and got 67 results. I thought this search was better because this way I got all the books that had to do with manga and Japan, and not just those who only had the subject heading “Japan – Arts – Prints & Drawings.” Looking through my results I did find relevant material such as this article, Japanese Manga Encounter The World[17].

ERIC [18]

First I used the thesaurus to find my terms. Unfortunately the database did not have the term “MANGA” or “GRAPHIC NOVELS” in its thesaurus. I then decided to try doing a keyword search for “MANGA,” which came up with 13 results. Looking at one such article, I decided to use the Descriptor “PUBLIC LIBRARIES” with my keyword search for “MANGA” and I only got one result. I then decided to look through my 13 results. Because ERIC mostly contains articles about teaching, these articles also talked about manga in that light. I think this would be a good place for school librarians who were interested in having manga in their own libraries.

Ingenta [19]

Because there is no controlled vocabulary in this database I started out with a general keyword search of “MANGA.” I got 33 results but a majority of them were not useful and the ones that were somewhat related to my topics were articles I had already found in other databases. One more thing about using this database was that a lot of the articles listed were not available to UH. To get them, you would have to pay a fee. Since I found articles dealing with manga in general I wanted to find some that had to deal with manga and libraries so I did another search of “MANGA” AND “LIBRAR*” but I received zero results.

JSTOR[20]

So when I first started my research on this database, I realized that there was no thesaurus, which made things harder on me to search for relevant items for my project. Clicking onto the advanced search page, I decided to try to focus my search in certain disciplines/journals. I choose Anthropology, Asian Studies, Education, Language and Literature, and Sociology plus a keyword search with “MANGA.” I got over 200 results but I noticed the majority of them were reviews. I then repeated this search but this time only looking for articles. This gave me a result of 88. Unfortunately from when I browsed through my results, I found nothing truly relevant to my topic.

Trying to get a more focused result, I tried to limit the search to only the Asian Studies discipline/Journals AND “MANGA,” with only articles and I got 8 results, all useless. I then tried to do just a keyword search using “MANGA” AND “Japan,” which netted me 147 results but they were mostly reviews. I tried the same result but this time only limited to articles, which cut down the results to 32, but those were useless for me as well. All in all, I would recommend using a different database then this one, as I could not find anything truly relevant to my subject in here.

Library and Information Science Abstracts (LISA)[21]

This was actually the first place I looked since this database houses articled associated with libraries and librarians. I knew that if I wanted to find articles about manga in libraries, this would be the database to search through. Looking through the thesaurus I tried to find the term “MANGA” which I was unable to find. I then decided to try a keyword search for “MANGA” which got me 29 results, though not all were relevant to my needs. I ended up looking for a promising article and seeing what descriptors it used to get a better class of articles. Strangely enough, one of the descriptors was “MANGA,” so I did another search using the descriptor “MANGA” and nothing else and got 10 results, with all most all of them being articles I could use for my topic.

ThingsAsian [22]

I had never heard of the database ThingsAsian until it was on a list of resources given to me by Dr. Nahl. Because of the title, I felt it would be a promising database for my topic. It was my surprise to find out ThingsAsian was actually a webpage rather a traditional database. While this site is full of articles about Asian culture and travel, it did not contain anything relevant to my topic, which surprised me. Since there was no thesaurus, I searched the site using a keyword search of “MANGA” which netted me 5 results. Not one of them was relevant to my topic and in truth only mentioned manga in passing when scanned through.

Internet Resources

Google [23]

Using google.com I typed in the search terms “MANGA” and “LIBRARIANS” because if I just used the term “MANGA” I would receive over 89,000,000 sites. However, this is not to say that those sites have nothing relevant to my topic. There are some great general information and review sites on manga that you would be able to find if you look through the first few pages of results. However, I felt that by using both terms in my search I could focus on sites that contained both components of my topics. One site I found was the Librarian's Guide to Anime and Manga.[24] This great site is aimed directly at librarians who are not sure what manga or anime is exactly. This site has such articles about what manga is, finding reviews on manga, about problematic content in manga, and special considerations for librarians.

Another site found through google.com was TangognaT[25], a web blog (an online journal) written by a Boston-based librarian, whose blog is filled with library talk and info about manga and anime. While this site is not scholarly, it is a good source for first hand information regarding manga and librarians.

Conclusion

During this research project I found out that in terms of resources, manga is like the poor cousin to anime. There seems to be a bout 2-3 times as much resources available for anime research then there is for manga. I guess that can’t be helped when it has only been in the last ten years or so that manga has stepped out into the forefront of American popular culture, while anime has been going strong for over twenty-five years. Still, what I have found was both interesting and useful for those interested in this subject.

When we first got this assignment, I remember thinking it’s so weird to do a research paper without the content. In fact, I think this was the first really intensive research I’ve had to do for a long time. When I was an undergraduate, I don’t remember using the databases available for my papers nor any online encyclopedias. I don’t think I even really knew about them at the time. This class made me realize just how many resources are available in the library that I just never knew about and how I waste their potential by not using them. I do feel more confident now in my abilities to help someone else find resources for their own research now that I feel I have a good grasp of searching technique.

Appendix I: Subject Headings Relevancy Tables

Key:

VR = Very Relevant

SR = Somewhat Relevant

NR = Not Relevant

KW = Keyword

DE = Descriptors

SU = Subject

JOUR = Type of Journal

Library Catalogs

Library of Congress Catalog

Subject Searched	Relevance
Graphic novels – Japan	SR
Graphic novels – Japan – Translations into English	SR
Comic books, strips, etc. – Japan – History and criticism	VR
Comic books, strips, etc. – Japan – Translations into English	SR

Voyager Catalog

Subject Searched	Relevance
KW “manga”	NR/SR
SU “COMIC BOOKS, STRIPS, ETC. – JAPAN – HISTORY AND CRITICISM”	SR/VR
KW “graphic novels”	NR
KW “comic books”	NR

Hawaii State Public Library Catalog

Subject Searched	Relevance
KW “manga”	NR/SR
SU “COMIC BOOKS, STRIPS, ETC. – JAPAN – HISTORY AND CRITICISM”	VR

Online Reference Sources

Kodansha Encyclopedia

Subject Searched	Relevance
KW “manga”	VR

Encyclopedia Britannica Online

Subject Searched	Relevance
MANGA (searched through index)	NR
KW “manga”	NR

The Grove Art Online

Subject Searched	Relevance
KW “manga”	NR

Key:

Subject Searched

Relevance