[This article is part of a series. See also Part 1: My Experience,
Part 1a: A Guide to SDCC for Librarians and Educators, and Part 2: Implementation and Impact.]
My quest to learn how to leverage the power of pop culture to cultivate student engagement in the library was jumpstarted by attending San Diego Comic-Con in 2024 and 2025. The convention provided an array of professional development opportunities and gave me new insights as I contemplated how I would take what I learned and experienced and apply it in my work as a teacher-librarian.
In addition to implementing comics-related lessons and programs, I wanted to find ways to leverage the power of pop culture to amplify the library experience, build relationships, and increase relevance for users. I am still actively seeking new ways to meet this goal, but I started by enhancing existing programs, embracing pop culture, and championing “nerd culture” in my school library.
Enhancing existing programs
My own children are now young adults, but in their teenage years, they introduced me to the world of
anime and manga. My youngest daughter is currently away at college, but posters of My Hero Academia and Haikyuu!! still hang on her bedroom wall. “Mom,” she said a few years ago, “you should get some manga for the library.”
I wasn’t sure where to start. I had no experience with manga, Japanese-style comic books, or anime, the animated TV shows and movies based on the books. I asked my kids to guide me toward titles that would be school-appropriate and popular. I started with just a few copies of My Hero Academia and Full-Metal Alchemist and grew from there.
The Graphic Library is a site where librarian Sara Smith provides excellent and helpful book reviews for comics and manga with school libraries in mind. Her reviews are searchable and include content details, her rating, suitability recommendations (middle school, high school), and subject tags. It can be difficult to find reviews, especially for manga, so I lean heavily on this resource when working on collection development.
Once my high school students discovered we had manga in the library, there was a buzz of excitement. Students quickly read what we had on the shelves and asked for more.
So I sought out a grant to help me purchase a core manga collection. Grant writing tip: When requesting funds to purchase manga, I pledged to dedicate funds from my annual budget to continue to build the collection based on circulation statistics and student interest. This strengthened my application because it showed my intention to continue to expand the collection, positioning items purchased with grant funds as essential resources. I found Sara Smith’s Beginning Buyers’ Guide especially helpful for this task.
As our manga collection has grown, we have added signage inspired by librarian Kelsey Bogan on her blog Don’t You Shush Me.
Through continuing to build our manga collection, I have expanded readership and provided material that appeals to students who otherwise might not have considered the library relevant.
A series description sign helps readers learn what the series is about.
Embracing pop culture
I encourage students to suggest books for purchase. I specifically seek their recommendations for celebrity and athlete biographies. We live in Kansas, so Patrick Mahomes, Travis Kelce, and the Kansas City Chiefs books are in high demand at all grade levels.
This interactive bulletin board invites students to guess if a line of text was written by Taylor Swift or Robert Frost. Display made from materials created by Tracee Orman and purchased from Teachers Pay Teachers.
The Kansas City Public Library cleverly promotes “Coach Read,” a nod to the name of popular Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid. In the library version, his mustache is a book.
Movies and streaming shows based on books are extremely popular, and I have learned to buy multiple copies and display them. My Life with the Water Boys and The Summer I Turned Pretty are constantly checked out.
I used to be hesitant to spend my precious budget on “trending” books that likely won’t be in high demand in a year or two. Through experience, I’ve discovered that it’s OK if these books won’t be popular forever. It’s more important to meet students where they are and provide them with timely access to content they want. Kids aren’t into delayed gratification. They’re not interested in waiting eight weeks until a book they want is available. It’s worth the money to purchase enough copies to meet the demand.
Championing nerd culture
Self-proclaimed “nerd culture” has become more mainstream. With the popularity of Marvel movies based on comics and paranormal shows like Stranger Things, what used to be considered weird and outside the norm has become enormously popular and embraced in a variety of social circles.
Dungeons & Dragons, a fantasy-based, table top role playing game, is being enjoyed by a whole new generation of players. In response, our library has two D&D starter sets available for checkout, including dice and copies of character sheets. I also bought a few D&D handbooks, and this collection has been enormously popular with students.
If you have players who need guidance getting started, Edutopia has an excellent article on Running a Dungeons and Dragons Club.
Making the library relevant
Because of my increased knowledge of elements of popular culture important to teens, students view me as more relevant, and by extension, have an improved view of the library.
My efforts to embrace pop culture through collection development, displays, and programming upped my cool factor and helped me build and strengthen relationships with students. It gave us a new point of connection for having conversations and allowed students to be the experts as they educated me on topics they’re passionate about.
Attending Comic-Con inspired me and led me on a path to finding new ways to leverage pop culture to build relationships and increase the relevance of the library and its offerings.
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