Report on Library Use by Gen Z and Millennials

Kathi Inman Berens, Ph.D. and Rachel Noorda, Ph.D. of Portland State University released their report, "Gen Z and Millennials: How They Use Public Libraries and Identify Through Media Use."

This is a must read for anyone working in a public library right now. As the parent of 2 Gen Z adults, I definitely saw a lot of their findings in my kids and their friends. For example, Gen Z loves print books. his is 100% true. 

At the public library in Adult Services, we serve patrons of all ages, but often, the ones we interact with the most are the oldest of our users or the parents who bring in their young children. Those parents, many are Millennials, but they are NOT using the library for themselves in most of our interactions with them.

When I work with libraries to help them serve leisure readers, they are too focused on services that cater to the Gen X and Boomers who have more free time to come into the library. This is a huge mistake, and one we keep making as a profession.

We have never been good at looking to how we are going to serve the younger adult generations as they are growing up and becoming library users with or without our help. And this lack of foresight has cost us dearly in previous generations. I remember at the turn of his century, as a profession, we had lost sight of people my age (Gen X) so much that I was in library school reading articles and think pieces by Boomers and the generation above them about the demise of the library over and over again. Let's not make the mistakes of those who came before us. Let's make sure we are looking behind us with a critical and honest eye.

Even if you do not see Gen Z and Millennials in your library on a regular basis, they are using the library in fairly high numbers. I hear this a lo from library workers, actually. They tell me that Gen Z and Millennials aren't there, so why should they serve them. But here's the thing, they are there, both in person and through our online apps and sites. We are the ones not seeing them. That is our problem. But wee can fix it.

Again, read this report, pass it on to others at your work, including those higher up the organizational chart. After reading it, have conversations about how you are going to serve patrons better based on these findings. I know I will be going over the report to assess what information and ideas I share with all of you here on the blog or in my training programs. 

You can also pair this with other generation reading reports which I have posted and gathered here for you.

And now in a moment of timely irony, I am off to the elementary school library to work with kids from Generation Alpha.