Gen Z falls for the quiet charms of the public library

Henry Earls dresses up to go to the library. He picks out cosy knitted sweaters and accessories with well-worn copies of classic books. Earls looks like an adjunct English professor - or an extra in the movie Saltburn.

- Alaina Demopoulos

"I want to cultivate an aesthetic when I go to the library," the 20-year-old Cooper Union art student said. "And, honestly, I dress up to see if someone will come up to me and say hi." 

When Earls isn't studying at the New York Public Library, he cruises the reading room for friends - or more than friends. Last week, he (respectfully) slipped his number to a young woman sitting near him, which led to a flirty text exchange.

Gen Z seems to love public libraries. A November report from the American Library Association (ALA) drawing from ethnographic research and a 2022 survey found that gen Z and millennials are using public libraries, both in person and digitally, at higher rates than older generations.

More than half of the survey's 2,075 respondents had visited a physical library within the past 12 months. Not all of them were bookworms: according to the report, 43% of gen Z and millennials don't identify as readers - but about half of those non-readers still visited their local library in the past year. Black gen Zers and millennials visit libraries at particularly high rates.