LISNews: Librarian News

Colleen Mills Williams writes "U.S. News & World Report has an article on teen literacy written by Anne McGrath. On the contents page, the tagline begins "EDUCATION: Attention, teens, this is a book..."
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/eduhome.htm

Willard Brown teaches chemistry at Skyline High in Oakland, Calif. But what he really hopes his students master on their way to learning science is a skill most people, the teenagers included, assume they nailed long ago: the ability to read. Too often, he says, students have an incomplete notion of what reading actually means. "They think, 'My eyes passed over the page, and I pronounced all the words.' They don't notice that they really didn't get it."

When the new Princeton Public Library opened last April, it included a much improved space for young adult patrons--they were previously squeezed in with younger children. The teens, whose high school is nearby, are enjoying it fully.

Kids are doing homework, studying together, playing scrabble, or leafing through fashion magazines...as many as 30 or more teens spend a part of their afternoon at the library each day. Many have taken leadership roles at the library by joining the Teen Advisory Board and working on special programs for their peers, such as music and poetry readings on Friday nights and a film series showcasing movies created by Princeton teens, said Susan Conlon, teen services librarian.

The library staff has put in place a specific procedure to deal with misbehavior. If someone repeatedly misbehaves or a more serious incident occurs, he or she is asked to leave the library and may not return without a parent or a guardian; here's the story from zwire.

litchick writes "If Illinois Gov. Blagojevich has his way, a misdemeanor could be in store for those who rent or sell a violent and/or sexual "M" rated video game to a minor. This ChannelOne article sums it up, but nobody's talking about what, say, a public library should do if they have a circulating video game collection. And are the backers really in tune with this movement?: "'We need to stop children from seeing the violence and getting their hands on anything they want to,' Mark Brummer said after buying football and hunting video games for his 7-year-old son at a Champaign mall.""

Anonymous Patron writes "A Neat List (.pdf file) that says it's an authoritative, annotated, widely disseminated reading list for children,
describing books portraying aging and older adults in a positive light. Numerous studies have found that while American children have a
positive view of old older adults in their own family, they have a negative world
view of aging."