Baby Boomers and libraries

One of the interesting developments facing public libraries over the next twenty to thirty years will be accommodating the needs of a huge influx of retired people as the Baby Boomer generation come to the end of their working lives. The Baby Boomer generation resulted from the huge increase in the birth rate following the Second World War (generally defined as encompassing children born between 1946 and 1964) and represents a significant demographic group. The challenge for libraries is going to be determining the characteristics of the Baby Boomer generation and predicting and catering for the services they are going to require.
Baby Boomers are generally thought to have grown up in a time of plenty. While the generation before had faced the Depression and the restrictions of the Second World War, the boomers grew up in a time of high employment and general optimism following the darkness of war. However they also grew up in a time of dramatic social change featuring events such as the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights movement, and the birth of Rock’n’Roll. As such Boomers are often generalised as being the ‘me’ generation who ‘want it now’, but at the same time have questioned, challenged and reformed many social and political structures. Some are suggesting that the Boomer generation will now change our ideas of what it means to grow old.
Generally the Baby Boomers can expect to enjoy a longer life expectancy than any previous generation and it is predicted that they will have an interest in remaining youthful and mentally and physically active. They will still be participating in many aspects of society and indeed many will still be wanting or needing to work, at least part-time. Some have labelled the Baby Boomers as the generation with ‘Great Expectations’ and this is unlikely to change now they have reached the age of retirement.
The Baby Boomer generation is generally thought to be better educated than any previous generation and this is likely to have a significant impact on their use of libraries. It is predicted that continuing or life-long learning will play an important part in the desire of Boomers to remain mentally active and pursue education for pleasure. Libraries will therefore need to be equipped to provide or support self-education courses and the skills needed to undertake them.
Through work or leisure many of the Baby Boomer generation will be familiar with advances in Information and Communication Technology, and will expect to be able to take advantage of these developments in their retirement. This familiarity will mean Boomers are likely to be comfortable with using the library on-line, making use of the library’s website to reserve and renew books, and to find out about library services. They will increasingly be ‘virtual’ customers who access and download resources from home. As a result they will expect libraries to be up to date with technological developments.
At the same time, having grown up with traditional books, it is thought that the Boomers will still want to be able to read from books, preferring them to electronic resources for certain types of information and for recreational reading. Libraries will therefore need to continue to provide fiction and information in traditional book format, but also allow access to the huge information resources of the Internet. It is also likely that libraries will need to be able to provide a venue for the different groups and organisations that Baby Boomers will be participating in to meet and the social interactions that these allow.
Women will represent a higher percentage of the Baby Boomer generation than men, and it will be a generation of women who have had more educational opportunities and more workplace participation than any previous generation - they are also sometimes known as the ‘Liberation Generation’. The reality is that many of these women have also had the major responsibility for raising the family and managing the household, so their working years have been particularly poor in terms of leisure time, and time for individual pursuits. For them retirement will allow more opportunities to pursue hobbies and interests and it is notable that in February 2009 women over 55 were the fastest growing demographic on Facebook.
While it is unwise and probably unfair to make too many assumptions on the characteristics of the Baby Boomer generation (particularly that they will all be alike), the fact remains that a very large cohort is beginning to reach the age of retirement and this will have a great impact on society and social institutions such as the library. It is predicted that the life experiences of the Boomers will give them quite different expectations of retirement, and that it will not just be a time of leisure, but also for beginning new activities, a period of productive aging. In both regards the public library is likely to play an important role in helping them make the most of their retirement.
Already here at Masterton we are noticing an increase in the number of recently retired people joining or rejoining the library and with the Wairarapa’s relatively older population, this is likely to be a significant social group we will be catering for. Some of the Boomer generation may not have been in the library for several years and will discover that the modern library still offers books, but much more besides as we continually work towards meeting the needs of our users. Libraries do of course already make provision for what are generally termed ‘senior services’, but it seems we are all going to have to rethink what a ‘senior’ is and wants.

Jon Adams
Community Outreach Librarian
Masterton District Library