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PLA - Day 4

Sorry it took so long to get the shortest day of the conference for me up here. Because of when my flight left, I only had time to go to the first session of the conference's last day, which was really worth it. The packed program was all about serving patrons in their 20s and 30s. Essentially the advice broke down in two ways: 1) make sure you're marketing your current adult programs in ways that don't scare off younger adults 2) find out what younger adults in your community are interested in and develop appropriate programming, even if that means hosting after hours events where alcohol is served. You may have to think outside the box a little bit in order to create events and that will attract patrons you aren't used to seeing in the library.

This presentation reinforced a feeling I'd been having even before PLA. I thought it was unique to our community, but apparently not. Libraries are generally great at serving their youngest and oldest patrons, but teens and quarter-life adults seem to get left out of libraries' focus. I think it needed to be said that younger adults are their own distinct group of patrons and need to be targeted just as much as preschoolers, children, tweens, teens, and seniors.
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