Is there a website I can go to that has age ratings for graphic novels?
Some graphic novels have a teen label or mature label on them but there are many that do not.
Answer
When you're adding a new graphic novel to your library's collection, deciding which collection to add to can be difficult if the marketing isn't clear or if the work is aimed at an age that's on the line between two different collection areas. Unfortunately, not every publisher actually includes a formal age rating when they put out a graphic novel, so there's no central place that can just curate 'official' ratings.
When deciding on which collection to add any item to, the most important question to ask is, "where will people be looking for this item?" At the end of the day, collections are all about increasing your patrons' ability to find your items!
Out of the options that are available, my top choice is ALA's Booklist Online - it's the most comprehensive and reviews books for kids and adults. If you search for something and it's in the "Adult" category, that's your answer. If it's in the "Youth" category, you can click into the result to find more specific age or grade ratings.
Another good one is noflyingnotights.com, a graphic novel review site crewed by volunteer librarians which has its own age rating system as well as including the publishers' rating where it exists. They also review materials for adults as well as kids. The catch is that they don't review everything, so you may look something up there and get no results.
You can also try Common Sense Media if you know the item is for kids or teens but aren't sure which. It's important to make sure you're also checking at least one other place as well, if using Common Sense Media; it only reviews materials meant for kids and teens, so it won't catch anything in adult graphic novels.
A website you might find helpful in more general terms for this kind of issue is Media Smarts, which has resources for teaching digital and media literacy. As a public library, it's a good idea to be upfront about the fact that not everything in your library will be appropriate for children - you would be doing the rest of your community a disservice if it was! These kinds of media and digital literacy lessons are helpful for supporting kids in navigating any environment - the internet, the library - where not everything is made specifically for them.
A final piece of advice is to check what other libraries are doing. Especially with items that can fall on either side of an age divide, it can be helpful to know where people will be used to looking for the item in other locations. To do this:
1) Open the Find tool
2) Change the first dropdown from "Item Record" to "Bibliographic Record"
3) Enter the title of the item you want to investigate
4) Select the correct item and click "Open
Once the bibliographic record for your item has opened,
5) Click the "Items" tab to see the holdings in other libraries. You can use the Collection, Shelf Location, and Call Number columns to see where the item is commonly shelved in other libraries. Generally, looking at larger libraries' holdings will give you better information, since those libraries are more likely to separate their graphic novels into several collections, like Juvenile and YA.
