White Paper Review – Pew Research Center: Younger Americans and Public Libraries

The Pew Research Center has released an interesting white paper named Younger Americans and Public Libraries: How those under 30 engage with libraries and think about libraries’ role in their lives and communities, concerning Millennials and their reading habits. Contrary to what some might expect, the results are not all doom and gloom.

The researchers ended up dividing Millennials into three distinct age groups:

There are actually three different “generations” of younger Americans with distinct book reading habits, library usage patterns, and attitudes about libraries. One “generation” is comprised of high schoolers (ages 16-17); another is college-aged (18-24), though many do not attend college; and a third generation is 25-29.

I won’t fully quote all of the interesting tidbits that the researchers came across, but I will put a few of the finding headings here to pique your interest.

Millennials’ lives are full of technology, but they are more likely than their elders to say that important information is not available on the internet.

Millennials are quite similar to their elders when it comes to the amount of book reading they do, but young adults are more likely to have read a book in the past 12 months.

As a group, Millennials are as likely as older adults to have used a library in the past 12 months, and more likely to have used a library website.

It’s not a long read, and if you enjoy books and think reading is important, then it’s something you’ll want to take the time to check out. No pun intended.