Attracting and Engaging Young Adults to the Westfriese Libraries

Libraries play a central role in society, a gateway to knowledge, culture and learning. But recently libraries have seemed to fall out of fashion, especially with young adults. Libraries have had a tough time with a streak of budget cuts, whilst adapting to many innovations and changes. This alone may make it hard for a library to keep up, but with a generally older staff and whilst addressing a young and dynamic target group (being young adults, 18-30), this task becomes overwhelming. One thing libraries could rely on in the past is the value of its massive book collection. Although reading is important for young adults, they seem to read less and less. Mostly the concentrated reading of longer pieces of text, referred to as ‘deep reading’ has had a strong decline. However, deep reading is important, as on a personal level deep reading improves critical evaluation, reflection and drawing conclusions on induction and deduction (Onderwijsraad en Raad voor Cultuur, 2019). On a societal level, especially in the current knowledge and information society, reading skills are important in functioning in society. In a society, strong reading skills improve the GNP and strengthens democracy (Onderwijsraad en Raad voor Cultuur, 2019). The goal of this project is to increase the young adult engagement with the library in Bovenkarspel which falls under the foundation Westfriese Libraries. Based on research into the company, the target group (desk research and interviews) and context, a future context was sketched with the ViP approach. Through this process the following design statement was defined: Westfriese Libraries want to support young adults’ self-development by providing them with the space and tools to explore themselves by culture. From this design statement a concept was designed which engages young adults by a treasure trail. Taking them step by step through discovery of different media and presenting them with challenges to explore all the library has to offer and develop their views and skills. Furthermore, this report presents two roadmaps which show the way for developing and implementing the concept and engaging and attracting young adults to the library.Strategic Product Desig