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Slides and speaking notes from my presentation at the National PCA/ACA Conference on March 28, 2013 in Washington, D.C. It was part of the "Increasing Access, Awareness and Usage" panel (#2701) in the Libraries, Archives, Museums and Popular Research section. I describe the process of re-cataloguing the comic book collection at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and the subsequent exhibit I helped create. I argue that archives and special collections can increase awareness and access to underused collections by giving license to their employees to make meaning of those collections. (speaking notes for each slide are in notes below)
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Seduction of the Innocent
How UMBC’s Special Collections found a new audience by opening up its little grey boxes
Steve Ammidown, University of Maryland, College ParkPCA/ACA National Conference, March 28, 2013
The UMBC Comics Collection
• 6,000+ comic books and graphic novels
• Books about comic book art and culture
• Original art
Why Comic Books?
• UMBC founded in 1966• Collecting the uncollected• Science fiction
• Pulp magazines• Novels• Fanzines
• With the science fiction came the comic books!
The Secret Lair
Project One: Re-Cataloguing
• Originally catalogued as individual books
Action Comics #415
Action Comics #416
Action Comics #417
• Re-catalogued using ANSI/NISO Z39.71 2006 (R2011) standards
They Don’t Want to Be Catalogued!
• Wrong volume number• No volume number• Wrong issue number• No issue number• Nonsensical issue
number• Torn out splash page• No cover• Change of publisher
• Title change• Issue number reset• Volume number reset• Variant covers• Free hand-out issues• Magazine vs. comic
book• Spinoffs• “Giant-Size”
collections
There Are a LOT of Comic Books…
• Seeing the collection as a whole• Adult view of children’s culture• Cover art, advertising, social themes
Putting on a Show
• Teasing out a theme• The Comics Code
• Doing the research• Dr. Wertham• Senate hearings• Modern
reinterpretation
The Collection Revealed
The Collection Revealed
What Did We Accomplish?
• Increased profile among students AND faculty
• More exhibit visitors than in recent memory
• Increased traffic for the Comic Book Collection
Shared Authority
• Michael Frisch: “the interpretive and meaning-making process is in fact shared by definition- it is inherent in the dialogic nature of an interview, and in how audiences receive and respond to exhibitions and public interchanges in general” (2011,127)
Shared Authority in this Context
• Special Collections as a “kitchen” where meaning is made
• Blending institutional knowledge with subject knowledge
• Drawing attention to underused collections
Takeaways
• Archives and special collections cannot afford to be static
• We have the tools to make meaning of our own collections
• If someone is passionate about a collection, there’s an audience they can help you reach
Thank You!
Steve Ammidownsammidown@gma
il.comtwitter: @stegan
Recommended Sources
• Wertham, Fredric. Seduction of the Innocent. New York: Reinhart & Company, Inc, 1954.
• Hajdu, David. The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How it Changed America. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.
• Nyberg, Amy Kiste. Seal of Approval: History of the Comics Code. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998.
• Adair, B., Filene, B., & Koloski, L. Letting go?: Sharing historical authority in a user-generated world. Philadelphia, PA: Pew Center for Arts & Heritage, 2011.
• Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. www.cbldf.org• Comics Vine. www.comicvine.com
