Comic Surprise

I hate when things go awry. I just wrote a long and witty post (of which the following post will be a bland paraphrase), then I went to a different webpage to collect another URL, and when I went back to BlogThis, all my text was gone (but the original link), as if it had reset to when I first opened it. Aargh!

Anyway, I was writing about how I was just searching the Vancouver Island Regional Library (VIRL) catalogue, and couldn't figure out why most of the graphic novels had no call numbers. Turns out, they have no call numbers because they are shelved in with the fiction. This is logical; graphic novels are usually fictional, and therefore should be in with the rest of the fiction. The reason I was surprised, I think, is because at the Greater Victoria Public Library (GVPL), all the graphic novels are in the non-fiction, which sometimes makes sense (as where Maus is shelved with the books on the Holocaust), but which means that someone just browsing the shelves for a good read is less likely to find graphic fiction.

Then I went on to say something about how I'd always percieved the VIRL as rather backward--I remember when signing out a book meant writing the title and your name on a sheet of paper at the check-out desk--and how the GVPL seemed much more sophisticated. Maybe because our municipality was a member of the VIRL and not the GVPL. The GVPL was unattainable until a few years ago, when Colwood/Langford joined up, and the VIRL left town.

Anyway, this is the second time I've been pleasantly surprised by the Cowichan branch of the VIRL. The first time was when I went in expecting to sign out one book (which I hadn't expected to find there), and came away with six as a result of browsing down a single aisle (the one with science and folklore) while waiting for my mother. And I could eaily have taken more. I put several back.

It's good to have your perceptions changed once in a while.