Mangás em bibliotecas : manual técnico de catalogação

Abstract

The growing inclusion of East Asian pop culture in the collections of Brazilian information units has brought attention to the particular characteristics of manga, whose physical and editorial format challenges traditional methods of technical processing. Despite their popularity among emerging user groups, there is a notable lack of Brazilian scholarly literature devoted to the description of this format, resulting in inconsistencies in library catalogs and difficulties in subject retrieval. In light of this issue, this study asks how existing international standards can be adapted to accurately accommodate the unique characteristics of these publications. Based on this premise, the general objective of this study is to develop a technical cataloging manual focused on the editorial and cultural specificities of Japanese comics in order to standardize librarians’ cataloging practices and improve information retrieval. The specific objectives are to: analyze the Machine-Readable Cataloging (MARC) format and the Anglo-American Cataloguing Rules (AACR) and their applicability to manga; propose guidelines for bibliographic description that take into account aspects such as authorship, volume numbering, and reading order; and develop an illustrated manual containing standardized, practical examples. Regarding the methodology, this study is characterized as applied bibliographic research with an exploratory objective, conducted through a bibliographic and documentary review of sources available in the CAPES Periodicals Portal, the Information Science Database (Base de Dados em Ciência da Informação), Google Scholar, and the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations. As the practical foundation of the study, the physical One Piece manga collection is used as the application model. The results culminate in the creation of a manga cataloging manual, a technical and illustrated product organized around essential components: the anatomy of the format and its right-to-left reading orientation; the standardization of authorship and titles within control fields and the primary description using the MARC 21 format; the ethical curation of the collection through completion of field 521 (target audience), aligned with Brazil’s national content rating system; the proposal of a color-coded labeling system for spine labels; and the suggestion of a controlled list of indexing terms. The study concludes that the standardization and development of methodological tools tailored to pop culture materials preserve the integrity of cataloging records, mitigate censorship-related conflicts, and extend the library catalog into the physical library space, thereby reinforcing the institution’s social role in mediating reading practices for new generations.