Presenter: Name: Alicia Abdul

Title: School librarian
Organization/School: City School District of Albany / Albany High School

Program Description
Manga (and anime) has become mainstream. However, whether librarians are catering to the otakus or the casual readers, it's best to have foundational knowledge ourselves to blend with student recommendations and what's appearing in pop culture while adhering to our district's collection development policies and freedom to read. The session will help secondary librarians curate a collection and build resources to continually feed (and weed) it including avenues to solicit feedback from our students. Participants will also leave with a crowd-sourced short list of must-read titles for ourselves.

This session will feature the voices of students, past and present, at our large high school who regularly borrow manga and others who are members of the Japanese Culture Club (formerly Anime Club) that Alicia Abdul has advised for over the last 17 years. The session will also touch on organizational details for a library's collection, big or small, tips and tricks for maintaining a vibrant collection reflective of student interest and taste, and a necessary collaborative discussion about censorship.

Learning Objectives
1. Help secondary librarians curate a balanced collection of manga for their school libraries
2. Share a list of resources including websites, videos, publishers, and professional magazines to keep current on trends
3. Create a path for every school librarian to elicit feedback from their students on a collection reflective of their interests, tastes, and pop culture
4. Develop a short list of foundational manga that every school librarian should read and know

Program Outline
Opening: Survey the room about manga readership, knowledge, and student participation in developing manga collection.

Middle: Share out personal experience and student narratives about manga collection. Foundational knowledge of manga and resources available to help curate a collection including time for crowd-sourcing participation. Focus on the physical collection within the library including time for crowd-sourced participation. And last focus on censorship and overall collection development strategies including time for crowd-sourced participation.

Closing: Accessing resources for librarians to use on curating the collection and eliciting feedback from students along with a list of manga everyone can read for a foundation for any healthy manga collection.
Manga from the Mouths of Teens

Grade Level: 9-12

Session Strand: Collection Development

Presenter
Alicia Abdul

Abdul is a high school librarian and an adjunct at two universities. She has served or chaired several YALSA book committees, moderates panels and reviews for SLJ, and presents across the state on young adult literature. To see what she’s reading, follow her on Instagram @ReadersBeAdvised.


Description: A school librarian shares student voices about manga in pop culture and the school library. Tips and tricks on how to keep a collection fresh, make informed decisions about purchasing, and give student agency to, what is likely, a growing section of your school library.