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Millennial disconnects with publishers and libraries
Millennials are the generation born roughly 1979–1994, and currently aged 14–29. Based on more than 50 Millennial panels I have conducted and extensive research by others, one can identify 24 distinct characteristics of this group. Fourteen of these have specific impact on publishers and libraries.
The challenge to libraries and publishers is to match services to Millennial characteristics and needs, and not just continue old ways.
Millennials want choices and the ability to be selective so they can immediately satisfy their needs. They are interested in personalization and customization. For information providers, for example, this means having databases that remember who users are and the searches they have performed.
Shown at the 2008 Elsevier Digital Libraries Symposium are presenters
(left to right) UIUC University Librarian and Dean of Libraries Paula
Kaufman, NJIT University Librarian Richard Sweeney and UF Senior
Associate Dean of University Libraries John Ingram. John's and Rich's
articles on this page are based on their DLS talks.
They are also collaborators doing social networking. Libraries and publishers need to facilitate this behavior, and this is an area where products and services are emerging.
Millennials want flexibility and convenience in managing their time and balance of life activities. For libraries, at its most basic this ideally means being available 24/7. They also are interactive, wanting to experience things. They learn by doing, and certainly not by listening to 50-minute lectures.
This generation is impatient. They feel they have no spare time and stay busy around the clock. They want to waste no time. How can libraries and publishers provide information services that improve the relevance of results and efficiency of study and research?
Millennials are digital natives and technologically literate. They are also gamers, seeing the world through a gaming lens and growing up with games. Can search engines have the look and feel of games: interactive, colorful, multimedia, less text, more collaborative, intelligent and fun?
They are practical and achievement-oriented, with well-defined goals. They are also nomadic, looking for information any time, anywhere. Mobile usage is standard for Millennials.
Millennials are pull, not push in their information habits, working from word-of-mouth recommendations. They are media consumers, looking for library and publisher services that are browsable, full motion and colorful, in understandable interactive virtual environments.
Finally, they are multitaskers par excellence.
The challenge to libraries and publishers is to match services to Millennial characteristics and needs, and not just continue old ways. 
http://library1.njit.edu/staff-folders/sweeney
