The Alicia Ashman branch library on Madison's west side has an exciting collection of graphic novels and anime, genres that have taken off in popularity during the past decade. It's part of a multi-library grant from the Madison Community Foundation.
"The grant helped us buy a lot of small-press items and reprints of things that have been out of print for a while," says Barbara Lundt, a reference librarian at Alicia Ashman. She's especially thrilled about the Badger superhero stories written by former Isthmus contributor Mike Baron and set in Madison.
The collection includes materials for adults, teens and children. It's proven so popular that Lundt started an anime club that meets twice a month and holds special events, like an anime drawing class.
In all, $742,500 in grants from the Madison Community Foundation have gone to develop specific themed collections in each of the 27 Dane County libraries. Nearly 15,000 new items have been added.
At the South Madison branch, the money was used to acquire materials on education, employment and housing - topics made more timely by the current recession.
"You can't improve your education if you don't have housing," explains Margie Navarre Saaf, branch supervisor for the Alicia Ashman, Lakeview and South Madison libraries. "We are seeing people who have been in the job force for five, 10, 15, 25 years who are now unemployed. They come to the library to use the computer for job searches, and they need help accessing government forms online and searchable employment sites."
The Monroe Street branch, meanwhile, has acquired preloaded Playaway digital audio books, which each hold up to 80 hours of content. The audio books are so popular the library has a hard time keeping them on the shelves.
To date, the circulation of grant materials has topped 40,000. Among the most popular special collection items are the Confessions of a Shopaholic DVD (688 holds as of July 1) and The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite by David Kessler (330 holds). The total number of current holds on grant collection materials is 29,923.