LISNews: Librarian News

Librarian John Scalzo has been lending video games at his library for a year. "And in those twelve months I'd have to say it has gone as good as anyone could have hoped. In the end, the numbers don't lie, and a success is all this experiment can be called." He's Happy With The Results

"So at the end of the first year, having games in a library has been a complete success. They are popular with adults, children and teens and I've only heard the faintest of grumblings (mostly from older patrons) questioning why a library would carry, scoff, games. They are an accepted part of the collection now and it's hard to ask for anything more than that."

News Out Of Georgia where A Floyd County judge has upheld charges pending against Gordon Lee, the owner of a Broad Street comic book shop who is accused of giving a sexually explicit comic to a minor in October 2004.

Defense attorneys for Lee — who were successful earlier this month in having four of the seven charges against him dropped — had asked Superior Court Judge Larry Salmon to consider dismissing the remaining charges, which they argued are based on an unconstitutional statute and represented "needlessly duplicative" prosecution of their client.

A Column From Viet Nam News says Vietnamese writers and publishers fo-cused on books for young children have forgotten readers aged between 13 and 19, according to industry insiders.

"While some 800,000 kids’ comic books roll off domestic presses every week, our publishing house puts out no more than 100 literary titles for teens each year," said poet Cao Xuan Son, head of the HCM City branch of Kim Dong, a leading children’s publisher.

The Boston Globe Reports teenagers can be a hard group to connect with, the Southeastern Massachusetts Regional Library System's staff has found, so they decided to try where they are most likely to be found. And, as any parent of a teenager knows, that place is online.
After two years of effort, the website myowncafe.org is up and running and attracting interest from teenagers and librarians across the 86-library network.