National Library Week, April 6-12, 2025, is a celebration highlighting the valuable role libraries, librarians, and library workers play in transforming lives and strengthening our communities. This year’s theme, “Drawn to the Library,” highlights the importance of all libraries while also spotlighting the unique experience graphic novels offer readers today. In the 1950’s, NLW Director John S. Robling promised that the first National Library Week event would offer “an outstanding opportunity to reach nonreaders and make present readers more active readers.” A little over 65 years later, the chosen NLW theme highlights a genre that catches the attention of more reluctant readers today according to recent research. More educators and librarians are encouraging readers to use graphic novels as tools to enhance reading comprehension and vocabulary.
The School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS) in partnership with OU Libraries and Schusterman Library (OU Tulsa) celebrated this year with several weeklong events!
To kick start the week, we set up two locations where the OU community could find information about Ou library resources, SLIS programs, and local public libraries. We want to thank Pioneer Library System and Metropolitan Library System for sending us swag that caught the intention of many students! Each table also included two passive programs where students could share how they interact with OU libraries and learn how to create zines. We also set up a booth outside that allowed us to interact with students and listen to the many ways they value libraries. Thank you to all our volunteers that joined us in making these special connections! The webinar on Wednesday, April 9th: Drawn to Academic Libraries – Graphic Novels and Zines for Higher Ed via Zoom was an informative and fun event that highlighted how people create Zines and how libraries are including them in their collection. This week was amazing this year and we are looking forward to celebrating next year.
