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Foundation of Library and Information Science

Notes 4. Serving the Customer as Library Purpose: In the 21 century, you will find three kinds of
st
customers which are as follows:
Digital Fugitive: This segment of library customers includes the Greatest Generation
and Silent Generation, those customers over 65 and who can generally be considered
20th Century customers. Their interests are typical of 20th Century library services
– books, newspapers, leisure and recreational print material, a quiet place to read
and socialize. Most are not Digital Immigrants, but those who are use a limited
amount of technology by necessity, like Internet and e-mail.
Digital Immigrant: This segment of library customers begins the serious Millennial
Customer who has adopted technology into their lives – work and leisure. They are
the Baby Boomers who are just this year turning 65, and are probably more of an
enigma than the other generations, because they span a broad range of background,
interests and activities. In middle age, they realized that they needed to become
“lifelong learners” because their high school education wouldn’t get them very far
in the last 20 years of the 20th Century. Technology was changing so fast that they
had to learn it to keep up and retain their place in society and the workplace.

Notes As library customers, Boomers represent virtually all library services, traditional
and cutting edge. Older Boomers are Digital Immigrants by necessity more than desire,
and they have typical traits of Digital Immigrants in that they still use punctuation in their
e-mails, IMs and even tweets.

Digital Native: You can see GenX in the Digital Native category because this is THE
generation that has truly mastered the art of adapting to change. They have straddled
today’s technology in an amazing way, yet still remember being their parents “TV
remote”. Their first introduction to technology was sitting on the floor in front of
the TV and changing the channel, and now they proficiently handle the five remotes
on the coffee table in their home, or more likely figured out the “universal” remote.
Generation X people are mostly Digital Immigrants by birth, and for the most part
represent those now reaching middle age. GenX statistically holds the highest
education levels when looking at age groups. Because the technological, educational
and societal changes have been so significant between their own childhood and now
their children’s, none of the Baby Boomer models fit for the GenX generation. They
must reinvent everything from parenting to career paths without a model. While
GenX is often called the “microwave generation” due to their desire for instant
gratification, they still struggle with their children who sit in a home with three
different gaming systems, multiple computers, and 500 TV channels, and complain
that they’re bored.

Did u know? GenX work in the vice grip of two generations. One has stayed in the work
force longer than expected, and therefore created a bottleneck in upward mobility. The
other generation with better technology skills is breathing down their necks, with their
over-indulged upbringing, where everyone who participates gets a trophy, and wants
everything yesterday.
Since most GenX did not grow up with technology (as we understand it today), but were
exposed to it early in their late teen and early adult life, and have that uncanny adaptability

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