CRAI-Biblioteca inaugurates the first Comic Book Library in the Community of Madrid at the Universidad de Alcalá
On April 19th, 2024, the Universidad de Alcalá, the CRAI-Biblioteca of the Universidad de Alcalá, the Instituto Franklin-UAH and the Cátedra ECC-UAH de Investigación y Cultura del Cómic inaugurated the Comic Book Library located in the CRAI-Biblioteca of the Universidad de Alcalá, the first collection of this kind in a public university in the Community of Madrid.
The opening ceremony was attended by José Vicente Saz, Chancellor of the Universidad de Alcalá; Emilio Viciana, Minister of Education, Science and Universities of the Community of Madrid; Miguel Olite, General Director of Artistic Education of the Community of Madrid; Javier de la Mata, Vice-Chancellor for Research and Transference of the Universidad de Alcalá; José Raúl Fernández del Castillo, Director for Arts and Culture of the Universidad de Alcalá; Esperanza Cerdá, Academic Secretary of the Instituto Franklin-UAH; and Ana Lariño, Director of Research and External Relations of the Instituto Franklin-UAH, among others. During the event, Francisco Sáez de Adana, Director of the Cátedra ECC-UAH de Investigación y Cultura del Cómic, and Mª Dolores Ballesteros, Director of the Library Services of the Universidad de Alcalá, thanked the institutions involved and explained the distribution and content of the collection.
In a context in which comic books and graphic novels are increasingly in demand by the public, the creation of the Comic Book Library responds to the need to offer a space dedicated to this artistic medium that attracts people of all ages in the Community of Madrid, following in the footsteps of the already well-known comic book libraries of Barcelona and Murcia.
The Comic Book Library will offer students, researchers and comic lovers a space to explore, study and enjoy this artistic medium in all its diversity and richness. The collection is made up of more than 800 works of national and international comics, graphic novels and books on theory and technique, thanks to the funds of the Universidad de Alcalá, the Instituto Quevedo de las Artes del Humor, the publishing house ECC Ediciones, and the Cátedra ECC-UAH de Investigación y Cultura del Cómic itself.
The Comic Book Library Collection of the CRAI-Biblioteca of the Universidad de Alcalá arises as an initiative of the Cátedra ECC-UAH de Investigación y Cultura del Cómic, integrated within the Instituto Universitario de Investigación en Estudios Norteamericanos “Benjamin Franklin” de la Universidad de Alcalá, and for this reason, it has an outstanding section dedicated to North American comics, with the ambition of becoming a national reference in this field.
In their commitment to the promotion of comic books, the Instituto Franklin-UAH and the Cátedra ECC-UAH de Investigación y Cultura del Cómic will inaugurate next Thursday, April 25th at 5:00 p.m. the exhibition "Illustrating Spain in the U.S." commissioned by the Spanish Embassy in Washington and curated by Ana Merino. This exhibition consists of a tour in comic format of the Spanish presence in the United States. The exhibition will be open to the public in the cloister of the Colegio de Málaga from April 21th, 2024. This is the first time that "Illustrating Spain in the U.S." is exhibited in a Spanish university after having toured different universities and institutions of the United States as Former Residence of the Ambassadors of Spain, Dickinson College, New York University or Dartmouth College.
The Cátedra ECC-UAH de Investigación y Cultura del Cómic is a joint initiative between the publishing house ECC Ediciones and the Universidad de Alcalá created to promote research, promotion and dissemination of comic books as a form of cultural expression. In July 2023, the Cátedra ECC-UAH de Investigación y Cultura del Cómic represented Spain for the first time at an institutional level at the San Diego Comic-Con, an annual convention that celebrates popular culture especially focused on comics, through the attendance of Francisco Sáez de Adana as Director of the Cátedra.