Thursday, April 19, 2018

It’s time to meet the new kids in town. While you were busy worrying over Millennials, the next generation has silently materialized to form the largest percentage of the United States population. Gen Z (b. 1995–present) has solidified many of the trends initiated by the “Facebook Generation,” but its members should not be simply dismissed as Gen Ys on steroids. Can libraries, notoriously resistant to change, rise to meet the challenges presented by consumers who expect immediacy as the rule, instead of the exception? This session provides an introduction to the first true Digital Natives and an overview of the consumers that our “next gen tools” should actually be targeting.