My Library Is... Growing Graphic Novels

The HSA McKinley School library received the My Library Is… Grant to purchase books to increase our graphic novel section. As I am sure is true of most schools, our graphic novel section tended to have the highest rates of circulation and interest for our students in grades 3-8 especially.  

After sitting uncared for and underdeveloped for the first 7 or so years of the schools opening, the library collection and its development and maintenance was not a priority for admin or many staff members. In the last 3 school years I have worked to resurrect the library, restart book checkouts, cataloging and collection expansion. With the start of book checkouts, our graphic novel section fell seriously short in titles available for students. With over 430 students in grades 3-8 and over 800 students in our K-12 building, the 182 graphic novels previously purchased did not cut it when classes were coming in weekly for book checkout.  

Graphic novels were traded like hot cakes at return and almost never hit the shelves, this kept titles circulating within a single class and almost entirely unavailable for 5th grade and up. I knew changes needed to be made to drastically increase the number of titles available. 

The RAILS My Library Is… Grant helped us to purchase over 300 high interest graphic novel titles, because of the popularity of our graphic novels, and we focused on buying as many hard cover and library bound books to increase durability.  

In addition to the purchase of high interest titles, we purchased over 30 titles in Spanish. HSA McKinley is a predominantly Hispanic community, and over the past few school years we have seen a growth in the number of older students who come in reading and speaking only or mostly Spanish. These new titles have allowed our Spanish speaking students to read and engage with high interest titles. Students have even created mini bilingual reading groups as new friendships have blossomed over these books.  

With our blossoming collection and increase in book checkouts, the school culture has positively shifted towards supporting the library. We have increased the time dedicated to getting students through the doors and books in their hands. This grant has inspired me to increase visibility and connection of traditional novels to our graphic novel collection, using generified and color coordinated spine labels so students can easily find genres that interest them across different book formats.  

I am so thankful to RAILS for providing my school with the My Library Is… Grant. It has had so many immediate benefits and many more to come as the school library continues to develop and gain support from within the community. I am excited when I am able to help students find the titles they want immediately, rather than making promises to purchase titles or snag them before another student checks them out. Our school is creating lifelong readers that can’t wait to check out the library, looking for their next great read!  

Today's blog post was written by Madeline Conaghan, Librarian, Horizon Science Academy - McKinley. 

This project was made possible by the My Library Is... Grant.