How old is the typical library patron? Grant shares a study that says Americans ages 16-29 are considered more likely to read actual printed library books and search the databases, and to spend more time at the libraries themselves. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Average Age of Library Patrons”
You’re listening to A Way with Words, the show about language and how we use it. I’m Grant Barrett.
And I’m Martha Barnette. Picture your local library.
When it comes to the books and electronic databases, which age group would you expect to find using them?
If you’re picturing the over-30 crowd, then you have to think again.
A new study found that Americans ages 16 to 29 are considerably more likely than their elders to read actual library books and to search library databases.
That under-30 crowd is also much more likely to spend time in the physical space of the library.
And there were a couple of other interesting statistics, Grant, from a survey by the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
One of them was that they found that three-quarters of those Americans, ages 16 to 29, said they’d read at least one print book in the last year, that 75% of teens and young adults as opposed to just 64% of older adults saying that they read an entire print book.
I don’t know.
Maybe that’s Twilight and The Hunger Games.
We’ll take it.
Yeah, exactly.
We’ll take it, right?
And the survey also found that teens and young adults are also far more likely to use computers and Internet facilities at a library and to use libraries as places to read, study, and consume all kinds of media.
Grant, I know you spend much more time in the physical space of libraries than I do.
Does that kind of younger demographic jibe with your family’s experience?
It does, as a matter of fact.
And it’s no surprise to anybody who listens to the show that my family, we’re big users of the library.
We are bringing up our son to appreciate books and to appreciate reading and information.
But what strikes me as so true about this is this particular aptitude that the younger set has for finding things out.
And it goes hand-in-hand with being more comfortable with technology.
It goes hand-in-hand with being comfortable with the Internet.
And the Internet is filled with connectors to these physical spaces.
Does that make sense?
I do a search on a book to, I don’t know, help me repaint my bicycle, right?
And it turns out that what I’ve turned up is an index record for a library.
I’m like, I found the record on my own on my computer, and now I can go to the library to get it.
The same way that I might go down to the Barnes & Noble to get a physical copy of a book, right?
So it’s just interesting.
I think this dovetails perfectly well with what I see.
There’s another thing happening here.
We might argue that the libraries are benefiting from kind of a rise of a little bit of cafe culture, cafe culture kind of having a bit of resurgence in the last 10 to 20 years.
And libraries have modernized a little bit.
They’ve made sure that they provided these digital resources and that they’ve kept up with the times.
I mean, we can argue about to what degree they should do that.
We don’t really want them to become an Apple store.
But on the other hand, they’re not the Biblioteque Nationale Francaise where you have to get permission to check to look at absolutely anything.
Right.
And it’s interesting what you said about young people using the technology on their own.
Because one of the other findings that I thought was really interesting was that fully 85% of those young folks said they felt it was very important to keep librarians there, to have librarians they can go and consult when they can’t figure it out.
They want an arbiter.
Yeah.
And they want a guide.
Exactly.
It’s true.
You know, we’re big fans of librarians on this show.
You and I know librarians.
We appreciate the work.
They’re rock stars.
Yeah. And I think the key thing here is I love the way that this survey, which is from a reputable source, debunks the notion that the younger generation has discarded all that the older generation has held dear.
It’s alive. The library is vivid. It’s all spectrums of people, gender, race, age, background, you name it. It’s very different in there.
Yeah, I had a librarian say, you know, people think that we shush people, but actually it’s more like McDonald’s at lunchtime the whole time, the whole day long, you know?
It’s just crazy.
It’s a big service industry, isn’t it?
Yeah, that’s a good way to put it.
Tell us where you think libraries should go in the future.
How should they change to meet the needs of the younger generation to keep them there and keep them reading?
Email words@waywordradio.org.
