Collection Development: Fotonovelas and Historietas

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Today I spent some time looking into the fascinating niche publishing world of Fotonovelas and Historietas, which for all purposes, are basically adult Spanish-language comic books.  These comics, which have always been an important part of the Mexican and Latin American "popular reading tradition," make up an estimated 12% of the materials read by Mexican adults.  Similar to "pulp ficiton" genres, fotonovelas and historietas feature cowboy, romance, and detective themes along with other general soap opera-worthy subject matter.  "Historieta" is the traditional term for what we usually think of as a comic book, whereas the fotonovela originally featured photo stills from films and soap operas (but now the terms are generally used interchangeably).  The comics are also called "libros de bosillo" because their small size (around 4"x4") allows workers to carry them around throughout the day in their pockets; which is another reason why they are considered "the poor man's novel."  After publication, it is estimated that each comic is read by around five people; in addition to rental programs at local used book sellers, they are often resold at stands in public markets.  Government agencies and other organizations have even used the format as an outreach tool.  For example, the Mexican government published a series of fotonovelas to educate Mexican migrants on the dangers of the border crossing and health service organizations like the Rural Woman's Health Project  in Florida have developed special comics that incorporate pressing health issues like HIV and diabetes.

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So what does this have to do with public libraries?  Well, libraries across the country have been adding fotonovelas and historietas to their Spanish-language collections, tapping the comics' potential to bring new users into the library. According to Cynthia Houston, author of "Fotonovelas and Historietas: Adult Comic Books from Mexico in American Libraries," an essay featured in Library Services for Multicultural Patrons: Strategies to Encourage Library Use, these comics serve to maintain the "functional literacy" of people who can read and write but don't necessarily have the opportunity to do so daily.  REFORMA promotes the collection of fotonovelas and a search of Worldcat returns close to 1,800 titles under the subject heading of "Fotonovela."  Due to their flimsy and serial nature, many libraries create only one catalog record for the entire collection and they are best displayed in CD rack displays rather than being shelved with the regular magazine collection.  Popular series include El libro vaquero, Aventuras de vaqueros, Frontera violenta (Westerns), El libro sentimental, El libro semanal, Amores y amantes (focusing on relationships and other middle and upper class urban soap opera topics) and El libro policiaco (urban dectective stories).  Currently, Latin American Periodicals is the only provider of fotonovelas to libraries.  Many copies can be browsed at Popular Print: Hermosillo, which can prevent the unintended collection of more scandalous comics like this one.

As we can see from the example linked above, many fotonovelas contain graphic images and subject matter, and there entire sub-genres like the fotonovela roja or verde which are known to be violent and/or semi-pornographic.  The popularity of these racier comics was actually the impe

tus behind a change in format; the comics came to be published in a smaller size so they could easily be concealed behind a newspaper. These controversial subject materials, along with anti-immigrant sentiment, caused an uproar at the Denver Public Library in 2005, when a Republic state representative and an anti-immigrant group brought complaints against the library's fotonovelas (which had been a part of the Spanish-language collection for 15 years), even asking the director of the library to resign over the issue. Since the library only had one catalog record per branch (as mentioned previously), they ended up reviewing the whole 6,500 item collection. Unfortunately, it was clear that the controversy less about the actual content and more about the fear of attracting undocumented Latino migrants to the area by developing special collections and services for them at the library (not to mention the group's anger over the population benefitting from tax-payer money). In the end, the Denver Public Library ended up canceling their subscriptions to four of the fourteen series featured in the collection. Library spokesperson Diane Schieman- Christman was quick to note that "similar English-language books have also been found, but no complaints have been made against those publications," stating, "We have millions of items in our collection, and our job is to strike a balance and serve a diverse community. We aren't going to do any reviews unless there is a request for reconsideration."

As I am a huge advocate for libraries collecting the materials that are actually popular with their user-base, I hope that fotonovelas will spread to more libraries across the country; their ability to engage Spanish-speaking populations is clear. There will always be those nay-sayers that challenge hundreds of items in our public libraries and schools each year, and we librarians and educators can't let it discourage us from carrying out our democratic mission to spread knowledge and information!