Sense-Making and Synchronicity: Information-Seeking Behaviors of Millennials and Baby Boomers (original) (raw)
A major challenge facing today's libraries is to develop and update both traditional and digital collections and services to meet the needs of the multiple generations of users with differing approaches to information seeking. The different characteristics and information needs of Boomers and Millennials present a dichotomy for library service and system development. Results are reported for two research projects (Dervin, Connaway, and Prabha 2003; Radford and Connaway 2005) that investigated habits and needs of library users and non-users. Both studies employed a multi-method research design to identify how and why individuals seek and use information. The first study (Dervin, Connaway, and Prabha 2003) reports the findings of focus group interviews with seventy-eight randomly selected participants, and fifteen semi-structured interviews with a subset of these participants. The second study (Radford and Connaway 2005) reports the results of focus group interviews with twenty-three Millennials, and an analysis of 492 virtual reference services (VRS) transcripts. The studies indicate that both generations consistently identify Google and human sources as the first sources they use for quick searches. The younger Millennials (Screenagers) mentioned consulting parents most frequently, while the older Millennials consult friends and professors. Boomers indicated they consult their personal libraries and colleagues. The findings have implications for the development of next generation library online catalogs, as well as services, including VRS.
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