Younger Americans Library Habits and Expectations
My initial impression would be that libraries would most likely be used by parents of young children. This is when I really began using our public library. Although, I know this to not be the case, from having done other research within the PEW internet project. The teen group is a prominent user of public libraries, and not in the old fashioned sense of just browsing and checking out books. They are users of library resources that I think many older adults (30+) do not even know about.
In reality this makes sense if you think about it. This generation has been raised in a technological age. They know about resources that older adults may not know about. They have also been raised in an age where they were taught to question. So it shouldn't be surprising that they would use librarians and a wide range of resources to help them find their answers.
I am an avid reader, and until my grad school course work, I did not use the library for anything except checking out children's books. I have now become well versed in the San Antonio Public Library's online system and I use the library more than ever. Without my course work though, I would not know any of this existed. I have even discovered the wonderful world of checking out e-books!
This article states that young Americans don't view libraries as a crucial part of their lives or communities, but they are using them. And as you can see from the image above, they are using libraries in a variety of ways.
51 pages towards the Mining PEW
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