A Research study of 14-35 year olds for the future development of public libraries [pdf]has just been made available. This is work commissioned by several UK bodies in the context of UK public library policy development and was carried out by a group called Define: research and insight.

The study examined attitudes of 14 to 35 year olds to public library services. This age section was targetted as it was seen to have lower levels of library use than others.

It found negative impressions among non-users and makes recommendations for addressing this. They identify several groups: Borrowers, Students, Functional dabblers, Family activity seekers, Teenage space seekers, and the Disconnected. The recommendations are unsurprising, including several 'baseline' recommendations about environment, stock and marketing. They also consider particular requirements of the identified groups, and make recommendations for how they are addressed.

Surprisingly, given current discussions there is little consideration of how the libraries present themselves on the web.

As George points out, several reports about the image and perception of libraries have been published recently, and he talks about another, Long Overdue: A Fresh Look at Public and Leadership Attitudes about Libraries in the 21st Century [pdf] (a terrible title, I think!), recently issued by the Americans for Libraries Council.