Survey of the Day: Younger Americans Want Great Library Programs and Spaces More Than E-Books

If there's one thing older generations like to complain about today's young people, it's their devotion to electronic devices. What kind of world will we end up with if kids these days are all reading books on their smart phones? Which leads to the question of the future of libraries, the public's brick-and-mortar meccas for the printed word, which despite increased usage post-recession are still struggling to keep their doors open.

A Pew Research Center report released today offers some insight into the minds of the very same younger Americans who will grow up to define what our libraries will become. Among young people (which Pew here defines as 16-29 years old), 75 percent had read at least one print book in the last year, versus just 25 percent who had read at least one e-book. And when it comes to libraries themselves, turns out Millennials are much more bullish on them than you might expect: