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Introduction
Less than ten years into the new millennium, the Millennial Generation is one of the trendiest topics in academe. From the numerous studies we know that they are “special, sheltered, confident, team‐oriented, conventional, pressured, achieving, and optimistic” (Wilson, 2004). This generation is defined within the birth years of 1982‐2002, but some say those born as early as 1979 show Millennial traits. The Millennials began arriving on college campuses in 2000 and are presenting a constant challenge to administrators and professors in the way the traditional “university” experience has functioned for generations. As John Wesley Lowery points out the key characteristics of the millennial generation has “significant implications for the design and delivery of student affairs programs and services” (Lowery, 2004). He also suggests that as this new generation of students populates our campuses “new patterns and levels of student involvement in campus life that have not been seen at colleges and universities for a number of years… [and] will also require a re‐examination of how programs and services are organized and delivered” (Lowery, 2004). Susan Gardner and Susanna Eng take this a step further and point out that “today's undergraduates are pushing the academic library to rethink the ways in which it presents its most basic services” (Gardner and Eng, 2005) meaning libraries and librarians need to begin to rethink and reinvent their programs as well. According to Richard T. Sweeney “changing user expectations are more important than other trends that affect libraries, such as technology, organizational constraints, librarian expectations etc … ” and “in the future, all organizations will have to meet these demands in order to sustain their own existence” (Sweeney, 2005).
These changes involve not just traditional aspects of the academic library, but ways in which the library markets and presents itself. For example, research shows that Millennials usually choose to search Google as their first source for information (Martin, 2006; OCLC, 2006). As they start arriving on campus we need to actively demonstrate that the library serves an important role and is more than just a warehouse of dusty books. For example we need to begin by altering our patterns of traditional library instruction and reference desk services by discussing the “Google Issues” and then begin to physically “move out of” or...