Things millennials love about the library | Podcast

Libraries | Millennials | Public services | Podcast

By Paulina Velasco

August 25, 2017 | 4:32 PM

A library at a secondary school in London. - Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

 

Millennials are renowned for loving old things — vinyl records, retro bicycles, film cameras. What about old institutions?

Despite being the generation that grew up hand-in-hand with technology, it turns out the millennial generation — those between ages 18 and 35 — love public libraries.

They're more likely than baby boomers or Gen Xers to visit the local public library or a public bookmobile. A Pew Research Center study found that 53 percent of millennials in the U.S. had used their public library at least once in the year prior to the survey.

What have libraries been doing that's attracting so many young adults? Marketplace Weekend staff discovered a few exciting things: Read more...

 

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Library hosting workshops on ‘adulting’ | Heather Laura Clarke | 05-14-20107

Public libraries | Library services | Adult education |Adulting

Halifax Public Libraries found they were serving lots of people from most age ranges and life experiences, but weren’t seeing many “new adults” come through the library doors. Their adulting series has changed that. (123RF) 

 

 

Libraries across the HRM offer programming for babies, kids, teens, adults and seniors, but Jocelyn Covert saw that there was a noticeable absence of one particular demographic.

“We have lots of families with young children, and lots of seniors, but there’s this entire age range — university through the early 20s — we don’t get to see very much,” says Covert, youth service librarian with the Bedford Library.

In library lingo, this demographic is referred to as “new adults.” No one could figure out how to get these young people through the doors until Covert came up with the idea for a How to Adult series.

“Talking about ‘adulting’ or saying you ‘just can’t adult today’ has become a trending theme, and we’re always searching for opportunities to bring in new users, so I just thought I could put the two together,” says Covert. Read more...