Sources of Information

Where do you get your information? Which sources do you trust the most? In a library teleconference offered by the College of DuPage Press called "Millennials in the Library," which is part of the series "Library Futures: Staying Ahead of the Curve 2010" they talked about where millennials get most of their information. Not surprisingly, the number one source was from their friends, then their family, and then their employers.

Millennials share a lot of information with each other via text messaging. In my notes it said that they send 8,000 texts per month per person, which seems extremely high to me and causes me to wonder if I heard this statistic incorrectly. I do not doubt that teenagers and college students do send large volumes of text messages; I see it regularly almost everywhere I go. The teleconference indicated that millennials do like to collaborate, be challenged, and stay connected to technology.

Individuals in the marketing industry know that word-of-mouth-marketing is essential for business success. A couple of librarians have also begun to realize this. In fact, they wrote a book on it called Building Buzz: Libraries and Word-of-Mouth Marketing. Today just happens to be its release date, according to Amazon.com. Additionally, Peggy Barber and Linda Wallace wrote an article in American Libraries about some librarians who involved word-of-mouth marketing techniques to promote their services. They involved circulation staff to demo databases, show how to do online reserves, and manage account records.

Judy Wright, the Head of Circulation at Winnetka-Northfield Public Library, describes what she learned from this effort:

We learned that this is one of the most successful ways to market. We've had better results from word-of-mouth than anything we've done--tangible results. We could see the statistics jumping. (39)

Where do you go for your information? Chances are good that you probably get plenty of information from friends, family, employers, and the internet.

Barber, Peggy, and Linda Wallace. "The Power of Word-of-Mouth Marketing." American Libraries 40.11 (November 2009): 36-39.