Imagination is the heart of comic book art...

"Comic books in libraries" is a popular theme. But how often do we hear about "librarians in comic books?" I find this reversal quite interesting. And of course, this all coincides with a collaboration the New York City Comic Book Museum has with the B. Davis Schwartz Memorial Library. For those of you counting this makes three exhibits we are currently offering-not too bad for a homeless museum! The exhibit, "Comics: A Flight Through Time" opens this weekend and runs through May 20^th at the C.W. Post Campus Library of Long Island University. It is the museum's first collaboration with a university library, and also our first time working with my Canadian/Librarian friend Steven Bergson.

Steven, a librarian at the Albert & Temmy Latner Jewish Public Library of Toronto, has been fascinated by this topic of librarians as characters in comics for years. His own collection has supplied the comic books for this exhibit. Comics scholar Steve has also archived his research into the appearances of librarians in comics and indexed it online at http://www.ibiblio.org/librariesfaq/combks/combks.htm. Some of his favorite portrayals of this esteemed profession are: Batgirl/Oracle-Barbara Gordon, the librarian in the Star Raiders graphic novel and Giles from the Buffy the Vampire Slayer comics series. Said Steve, "the first two are fighters as well as thinkers and Giles is an invaluable assistant to Buffy (who does the fighting for him.) In Star Raiders, the "librarian" was a military man who survived an apocalypse by going underground during the cataclysm. Library books were stored below, so he made himself that world's librarian. His abilities are later underestimated because he is thought to be "merely" a librarian." His least favorite is the portrayal found in Joe Sacco's "Voyage to the End of the Library," for its "unfairly negative view of libraries, librarians, and library users." Steve's list has many more examples to check into, and many of the books he lists are a part of the exhibit. He delved far enough into this theme to discover an old issue of Spidey Super Stories containing the character Valerie the Librarian-who apparently became Spider-Woman well before the first Jessica Drew ever donned her own webbed garb.

I asked a few librarians: What comic book character would YOU most like to be? Here are some replies:

"Super-Librarian. Memory power to remember the exact answer to every reference question ever asked. Super-speed to look up the correct answer to any question instantaneously. Strength to carry the entire Oxford English Dictonary set in one arm, and the complete Encyclopedia Brittanica in the other. Mental powers to browse the Internet instantly just by concentrating. Flying ability (which almost all the superheroes have nowadays) would be an asset, enabling me to retrieve the important books that always seem to get put up on the very top shelf. Sound absorption powers to ward off attacks from villains using sonic weapons, and to help keep the library quiet. Martial arts skills, which I learn about from browsing materials in the library's physical fitness collection, to ward off ninjas and other "problem patrons." And an excellent grasp of higher-level mathematics to calculate the correct overdue amount in my head, no matter how delinquent the patrons have been. I would have to be a multi-millionaire in my secret identity so that I could make the huge anonymous donations to the library acquisitions budget that allow me to fill the "gaps" in the collection-starting with comics, of course.
Steven M. Bergson

"I wouldn't mind being like Oracle...tapped into all the info systems in the world. It would be awesome to have access to all the information in the world- even info that you're not supposed to have."
Michael Timpani
Law Librarian/ Dept of Energy

"I think I'd pick the Silver Age Flash. There's too many books to read, too many photographs to catalogue, too many exhibits to see...super-speed would make all that much easier. And in the Silver Age, nobody was really trying to kill you. "
Mike Rhode
Archivist, National Museum of Health and Medicine, Washington, DC

"Wonder Woman is an inspirational role model in that she values democracy and respects the rights of women. She encourages women to be strong but advocates that force be used only as a last resort. She is indeed a remarkably sensitive person who is concerned in war-time about protecting the foreign born from intolerance and prejudice."
Manju Prasad-Rao
Head, Instructional Media Center, C.W. Post Campus, Long Island University

Interesting to note that Mary Kate Boyd-Byrnes, Reference Librarian, Amrita Madray, Reference Librarian and Jean Uhl, Media Librarian also from C.W. Post Campus, also said Wonder Woman...must be a trend.

"Comics: A Flight through Time" from April 10, 2003 - May 20, 2003 in the Main Lobby of the B. Davis Schwartz Memorial Library, C.W. Post Campus, Long Island University, 720 Northern Blvd. Brookville, NY. Please check our website at www.nyccbm.org for more information.

Until next time...

This is a weekly column from our friend David Jay Gabriel, Executive Director and Founder of the New York City Comic Book Museum. You can find out more about the museum at www.nyccbm.org.