Where Would You Look for a Leunig Collection?
How can readers find a Leunig collection when they do not know whether to search under cartoons or poetry? The question sounds modest. Behind it sits a real browsing problem. A reader who approaches Michael Leunig through poetry may never walk past the cartoon shelves. A reader who loves his drawings may never type a poetry term into a catalogue. The reverse is equally plausible, and in both cases the book stays out of sight.
This piece is an editorial proposal. It does not report measured library outcomes. I set out six arguments and practical choices below and test each against three criteria: whether it helps readers discover the book, whether it stays faithful to the particular collection, and whether library staff can realistically carry it out.
1. A Cartoon Label Can Hide a Poetry Route
Picture two readers, both hypothetical, and neither knows the title of the book they would enjoy. The first browses the cartoon shelves on a slow afternoon. The second sits at a terminal and searches the catalogue for poetry.
The first reader may well find the collection, because the shelf label put it there. The second may not, unless the record contains something a poetry search can match.
These are two separate discovery problems. A shelf label identifies a physical browsing location. A catalogue record can carry additional searchable description without moving the book an inch. When staff treat the shelf label as the whole story, it quietly becomes the reader's only visible route, even though the catalogue could have supported a richer one. So the interventions differ: shelf problems call for physical signposting, while search problems call for better description in the record.
I have no failed-search counts or circulation figures to offer here, and none from unnamed libraries either. The argument rests on how shelves and records work, not on observed losses.
2. Let Each Leunig Collection Earn Its Labels
Before adding a single access term, inspect the edition in hand. That means the title page, the publication details, the contents page where one exists, and the material itself. Record the title, publisher, publication year, and edition statement, and keep page references for any passage or sequence you later cite as evidence of verse, cartoons, or reflective prose.
Why insist on this? Because Leunig's books do not all mix forms in the same way. Some pair images with short captions. Others place verse beside drawings, or move into reflective prose. The relationship between a caption and its image needs reading before anyone calls that caption a poem. A line of text beneath a drawing may work as a punchline, a title, or something closer to verse, and only inspection settles which.
Captions Need Reading First Leunig's wider reputation as a poet cannot turn an uninspected edition's captions into evidence for poetry access terms. Describe the book on the desk, not the author's career.
For the same reason, this article names no collection as a verified example. No edition or contents have been supplied for inspection, and inventing one would undercut the very rule it proposes.
3. Give Poetry Readers and Cartoon Readers Different Doors
Consider two more hypothetical readers. An educator wants material for close reading in a classroom and starts with poetry-related search terms. A cartoon enthusiast wants visual storytelling and starts with cartoon-related terms. Suppose the collection they could both use has been inspected and genuinely contains suitable verbal and visual material.
Both routes can end at the same book and the same bibliographic record. The educator may read the verse slowly, line by line. The enthusiast may follow the drawings as sequences. Neither has to accept the other's reading of what kind of book it is.
That is what cross-listing preserves: several starting points. It makes no definitive ruling on Leunig's genre. These scenarios illustrate an editorial argument; they are not reader interviews, classroom case studies, or evidence of learning outcomes.
4. Keep One Book Record, but Add More Ways In
Precision matters with this term. In this proposal, cross-listing means adding accurate discovery routes to an existing bibliographic record. Creating duplicate records to inflate visibility falls outside that definition, and it tends to confuse holdings and frustrate readers.
A record offers several distinct mechanisms, and each behaves differently:
- the summary and contents information, which describe what the book holds;
- subject access points and form or genre terms, which support searching and browsing;
- locally maintained reading lists, where the catalogue supports them;
- holdings or item information, which identifies the physical copy's location and availability.
Keep that last element separate from the bibliographic description. The description says what the book is; the holdings say where a copy sits today.
The working sequence follows from this. Inspect the collection, review the existing record, then add access points the local cataloguing rules permit. One caution applies here: local systems and rules differ, and a term may display in the description without receiving equivalent treatment in keyword searches, filters, or browse indexes.
See the Field Live After editing, look at where the new field appears in the public interface and run the search you intended it to serve. Confirm retrieval before calling the edit a discovery route.
5. Point Across the Shelves Before Buying Twice
"Shelve it twice" is a provocative phrase. Taken literally, it suggests buying a second copy for every Leunig collection, which is rarely sensible and never automatic. A second purchase is a separate collection decision, shaped by space, resources, and documented local demand.
Cheaper physical connections exist:
- A staff-approved shelf pointer in the poetry area naming the collection and directing readers to its current location or live record.
- A temporary thematic display drawing poetry and cartoons together.
- A reading-list entry that resolves to the intended record, where readers can check holdings and availability.
Each pointer must lead somewhere true. If a display relocates the copy, update the location information or the accompanying directions before readers meet the pointer. The benefit is simple: a next step from either browsing area, with no claim of higher circulation attached.
Pointers Can Mislead A shelf card that names a book now sitting on a display table promises something the shelf cannot deliver. Check the live location every time a copy moves.
6. Check Whether Both Routes Reach the Book
A short, documented check closes the loop. On working day 0, capture the baseline: search the public catalogue using the author's name with poetry-related and cartoon-related terms justified by the inspected collection, and keep the exact query strings. Make the approved changes, then repeat the same searches on working days 1 to 3. These are suggested review dates, not an observed indexing turnaround.
For each query, note whether the intended record appears and whether its description explains the mixed forms accurately. Then follow every shelf pointer and reading-list entry through to the live record and confirm it shows a clear location and availability status. If the public record has not updated within the window, log the change as pending. Record obstacles and corrections as you go; skip any announcement of improvement you have not measured.
Two Doors Into One Leunig Record
Readers reach Michael Leunig from different directions, some through verse and reflection, others through drawings and recurring characters. None of them should need to know a classification scheme in advance. The three parts of this proposal answer different questions: faithful edition-level description establishes what the book contains, multiple discovery routes let both kinds of reader arrive, and physical duplication remains its own decision, made on local grounds.
My position is firm. Cross-list Leunig collections wherever their contents justify it, keeping one accurate record and clear routes from both poetry and cartoons.
