Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Libraries and youth

A contrarian position at Library Juice:

To me it would seem more accurate to say that Boomers are projecting their love of youth culture onto a generation that doesn’t care about it as much, and getting a vicarious sense of youth from it. This is evident in the picture of the Millennials painted by Boomers and the young students’ actual responses to it. Efforts to make libraries more like “places that young people like” may turn out to be more effective in making older librarians who use the spaces feel young than they are in making young students feel at home. I find Boomers’ preoccupation with youth conspicuous in Information Commons-related discussions about what the new generation of young people is like.

I can't say whether young people are as indifferent to "youth issues" as Litwin claims, but it's an interesting perspective nonetheless.

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