Programming for Millennials

I’ve been thinking about how to entice millennials to use our library more for over a year now. And now, I feel like I’m finally in a place to start planning some programs to attract this generation into the library. Being a millennial myself, I know how much millennials hate being called “millennials.” But at the same time, we lose most of this group from about 16 to when they become parents themselves. So how do we get a group of people to use the library who haven’t been in a public library for a good 10-15 years?

The first order of business is to figure out how to promote these programs to an adult audience so that it doesn’t become a program for seniors (which is our typical audience for adult programs). It’s my goal that as we provide more and more programming for this age group, it will become a group of people who know what the library can offer them and bring their friends along too!

I’m hoping that the programming that we begin to offer will lend itself to the millennial generation – a book discussion held at some of the local bars, preschool for adults (old-school 90s activities like Spirograph, Shrinky Dinks, etc.) and some educational classes about home buying, home maintenance and more.

We’re also going to look into providing a Tech program highlighting our online resources including OverDrive, Zinio (for eMagazines), Ancestry.com and more. I’m hoping that this would be a way to bridge across generations to educate more community members about library services that we already have, but things they might not know about.

Our Board also suggested partnering with the local Mom’s Club (which we currently do), by offering a specific program for parents of young children to highlight new books, our programs, and services to encourage circulation and programming.

We also just created our own “book bundles” a group of four fiction and nonfiction titles about a specific topic for easy pick-up for parents who don’t have a lot of time. My coworker did a great job of putting together these great bundles and really focused on providing diversity where she could find it. Plus, by not changing the call number, spine label or location, if these books bundles don’t work after a month or two, it wasn’t too much excessive work to have to take apart again.

So what programs would you like to see for millennials in the library?