[EricH]

Originally Posted by TheBlenderMan

If you look at it from our side it does seem problematic but if you look at it from the library's side it makes sense. After all, they are trying to promote reading to boys because they feel like that is a problem that they should try to fix, they didn't want girls to take part in it because it seems that for the most part girls were more likely to go into the library than boys. Also the fact that they only had 15 seats available.

There are better ways to do that, however.

What exactly they are may depend largely on the area around the library and what the target audience likes to do, but I would suspect that it's quite possible to find something that would attract boys in large numbers without disenfranchising girls. For example: How many kids do YOU know that would pass up a chance to earn some money by doing something that doesn't take a lot of work? Like, oh, I don't know, reading a book? An announcement that the library (or a sponsor) was offering some (reasonable) amount of money per some (reasonable) amount of books read (subject to certain possible restrictions, let's just say age-appropriate for now) would almost certainly trigger some sort of response. And if you were particularly sneaky, you put in bonuses for who reads the most.