An article recently posted on Forbes that caused a huge outrage on the internet this week. An economics professor by the name of Panos Mourdoukoutas proposed in a now controversial Forbes opinion piece that since Starbucks and Amazon have rendered public libraries virtually useless, Amazon stores should just replace libraries altogether. His reasoning was that people use their Starbucks loyalty cards more than their library cards now and video streaming has replaced book rentals.
In fact, the backlash to this proposal was so huge and unexpected that Forbes even had to remove the offending article.
Therein lies the fact that Millennials (22 to 37 year olds) and Generation Z (the 21 and younger crowd) the are utilizing libraries at lower rates than their predecessors.
However, this passionate outcry just goes to prove that young people do not consider libraries to be overrated, but truly value the useful services they provide to society.
If anything, it goes to prove that the book is far from dead among young people.
Read more at GeekWire.