Now I am by no means a professional librarian yet, but I do have my suggestions on starting places. Also since I am not an education student, I do not plan on giving suggestions for starting a graphic novel collection in a school setting. I'm looking mainly at public libraries.
One of the first things I would suggest is to talk to other librarians who already have an established graphic novel collection. The most effective way I've found to do this is to join a listserv that deals with the topic that you are concerned about. I have learned a great deal from the GNLIB-L listserv that I joined for this project. Listservs are great ways to have a conversation with people from all over the world. They are kind of like a forum, but instead of posting a topic on a board, topics and responses are sent through a mass e-mail system. Everyone who is in the group can post topics and responses. You can gain valuable information from a source like this because of all of the other members giving their input as to what has or hasn't worked for them in their libraries.
You could also try talking to the local school librarians to see if they do have a graphic novel collection for their students. You may not be a school librarian, but the patrons who are coming to your library are students. The school librarian may have some insight as to what types of graphic novels that her students are requesting or taking out.
Keeping on topic with how a school library can help the public library, the ALAN Review has recently published an article titled Inserting Graphica into Your Curriculum: Recommended titles for grades 6 - 12 written by Peter Gutierrez. I think this would be a great starting place for a library who wants to create a graphic novel collection. Guiterrez says he compiled his list based on "an overview of titles that contain significant literary merit and can accomplish multiple curricular goals. They should should hold appeal, both in content and theme, for middle and high school students, is of course, another important consideration." He also said that he was not going to include such classic titles as Art Spiegelman's Maus or Jeff Smith's Bone because they are classic and he wants to introduce new titles. Along with those titles he now wants to include American Born Chinese, Persepolis, and Watchmen because of their recent spikes in popularity. In this article he offers a list of 14 graphic novel and manga titles of both fiction and nonfiction, each accompanied by a review as well. I think this would be a great article to read for a librarian because of the good reviews and, if you're keeping in mind that your patrons are students, it provides a great list of titles to supplement the information they're learning in school.
[Gutierrez, Peter. "Integrating Graphica into Your Curriculum: Recommended Titles for Grades 6 - 12." ALAN Review. Fall. (2009): 68-72. Print.]
Another route you could go in is by checking out what the library journals have to say. I subscribed to Library Journal for a while my last semester here and I enjoyed reading it. There is also School Library Journal which offers more titles for student aged kids, so that may be a batter choice to look at rather than the more adult orientated Library Journal. They do have a graphic novel section filled with upcoming books and reviews. Now if you can't get a hold of these journals mentioned, there is always the databases out there filled with articles. Most public libraries in Pennsylvania subscribe to Access PA Power Library which has a numerous amount of databases. These articles can be very informative and help get you started in the right direction.
Thanks to a new discussion on the GNLIB listserv, I have some online tools to help a library make selections for their graphic novel collection.
Manga
This is an about.com website all about manga. It offer's Deb's Manga Blog. Deb Aoki is a manga artist and she offers her insight into the manga culture through her blog. This website offers a ton of information about manga and is very helpful if you're having trouble understanding this different form of graphic novel.
Graphic Novels: Resources for Teachers and Librarians
I was very impressed with this website. It's run by Michael Lavin from the University of Buffalo. He's very qualified to run this sort of site because he is a librarian. This site offers much information about formats, publishers, genres, reccomended novels, internet resources, and most importantly tips for collection development and putting graphic novels in libraries.
Graphic Novel Archive
I think this is a great website for reviews for graphic novels. It offers age ratings, reviews, and links to buying options. This site could be useful when you want to gather a quick overview of a title before deciding to purchase it or not. It also offers a nice FAQ about graphic novels that answers some persistent questions.
Comics Worth Reading
This website is another blog that reviews graphic novels. It is run by Johanna Draper Carlson who has a long history of judging and reviewing comics for notable publishers. She also has help from a few other people who both work in comics and review them as well. This site also reviews movies that are coming out that are geared towards young adults.
Teen Reads
This website is full of more reviews not just on graphic novels, but also on other young adult books. It's run by Carol Fitzgerald who also runs the Book Reporter and many more book related websites. It offers a wide variety of information and lists that could appeal to young adults. Some lists include books into movies, the ultimate reading list, series, cool and new, and coming soon. I think this would be a good way to keep up with what's going on in the young adult literature world and see what is popular.
Finally, if you really want to understand how comics work and want an in-depth look at them, then I recommend reading Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. I have just finished this book and found it very informative, but also pretty academic. It takes a very in-depth look at comics and how they work. It explains how time works in comics, the importance of the space between the panels, different forms of art and their respective meanings... just to name a few. Since it was written in 1994, it is a bit dated, but the information presented is still relevant to graphic novels today. This book is written in graphic novel format so it is could also be a nice reference book to get you started on graphic novels if you haven't ever read one before.
As I final note, I would also suggest that you poll your patrons, they being the young adults who use your collection. Find out what they want more of in the library and what they're interested in. It could be something as simple as asking the patrons if they would like more graphic novels in the collection as you are checking them out, or as formal as creating a committee of young adults to come up with a list of titles or authors that they would like to see more of. I've noticed in the questionaires that I've gotten back that libraries are starting to have a teen group that meets at certain times and that is where they get their suggestions for new material from. Like I've always felt - the patrons are the most important thing in the library. Without them, you simply wouldn't have a library. So why not listen to them?
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