Marketing the Millennials: What They Expect From Their Library Experience Patricia M. Duck and Randi Koeske University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg April 8, 2005

A Short Quiz to Start…

Who Are the Millennials? Those students born after 1981 Also known as: – Generation Y – Echo Boom – 14 th Generation 80 million plus: a generational wave?

How Many?

Millennial Characteristics Confident, optimistic and intelligent Team and rule-oriented: conformists Most ethnically diverse Visually oriented Easily bored Prefer active learning exercises Demanding: have high expectations

Academic Expectations Prefer subjects in which they can measure progress: technology, economics, social sciences Cutting edge facilities Geared toward doing research only on the Internet

What are UPG Student’s Expectations? Who we are: small regional campus library Part of the University of Pittsburgh Library System About 1900 undergraduate students –70% commuter, 30% resident 20 majors

UPG Campus Survey: Fall 2003 A student-generated survey developed by Dr. Randi Koeske and senior psychology students Based on the College Student Experience Questionnaire (CSEQ) and the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) Special version: Library Experiences at UPG

Library Experiences at UPG Four sections: –Section 1: 30 questions on what they did in the library –Section 2: 10 questions assessing students attitudes toward library services –Section 3: 4 questions on how much time students spent in the library and in what areas –Section 4: 10 questions related to library instruction

Crunching the Numbers 202 participants on campus 80% were millennials; 20% Gen X’ers 54.5% commuters 45.5% residents Data input and run through SPSS by psychology students

Most Frequently Reported Library Responses 71% of students had received library instruction 92.3% agreed that the library staff was friendly and willing to help 79.2% of students used the library for study Most frequently reported library experience: using an internet search engine not provided by the University to find information for a class

Attitudes Towards Library Services Section 2 of the survey: 10 questions Attitudes = expectations of the user Were we meeting millennials expectations? Was there a difference between identified groups?

Some Statistical Differences Between Groups ANOVA analysis –Resident status (commuter vs. resident) and class (freshman vs. senior) Question 10 –p=.000 for status and.007 for class Question 1 –p=.018 for status

Results of Library Experiences at UPG Little or no difference between millennials and Gen X’ers Expectations concerning libraries center more on comfort and technological issues rather than facility issues Confirm that millennials are technologically savvy Visual orientation and short attention spans may hinder their efforts in doing research

Introduction of Zoom! Virtual intranet to access all materials from off campus Installation of a soda pop machine Hosting “regular” campus events in the library Development of better instruction methods for online databases New Initiatives at UPG

Thank you for your attention! Patricia M. Duck University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg Millstein Library 1150 Mt. Pleasant Rd. Greensburg PA