Libraries! Comics! Women! It’s Valhalla!

#alaac16 is fully underway, and this morning I attended the “Welcome to Valhalla” program.

To talk about the Valhalla community, a secret Facebook group, first you need to know about the Valkyries. And that is how this panel started, with an introduction to the Valkyries, a support group/community/network for women who work in comic book shops. Comic book retail employees have certain privileges that are not available to librarians, so the Valkyries is not open to us, but recently Valhalla (where Valkyries ascend to once they leave their comic book store jobs) has been opened to librarians who work with graphic novels!

The panelists emphasized using the group to collaborate and share ideas about comic programming in libraries, display ideas, and experiences in planning library comic cons, an awesome trend I’ve noticed in libraries lately.

Another great piece of advice from the panel was on how to form partnerships with comic book stores. As librarians, it can be up to us to make first contact with local stores, but they can be very open to collaborating with libraries as long as they realize we’re not in competition. And if the store doesn’t want to form a partnership and cross promote programs or team up for Free Comic Book Day or hosting authors, try other stores. One of the panelists had to go to the comic shop in the next town over, but found a store owner that was incredibly passionate about helping her get comics into the hands of young readers.

But the major point I took away from this panel, was that the group members enjoyed having an online space where they could discuss comics and get reading recommendations and connect with other women who are passionate about a common topic.