april08b.indd


our academic futures 

Pat Hawthorne and Nicole A. Cooke 

Trendspotting
and
microtrends
in


academic
libraries


Working in the new society 

What happens when something matters to 1 percent of the population? That 
is all it takes “to create a movement that can 
change the world,” states Mark Penn, author 
of Microtrends: The Small Forces Behind 
Tomorrow’s Big Changes.1 

Penn, the well­known pollster who 
identified soccer moms as a critical voting 
constituency in Bill Clinton’s 1996 presiden­
tial campaign, identifies “a microtrend as an 
intense identify group, that is growing, which 
has needs and wants unmet by the current 
crop of companies, marketers, policymakers, 
and others who would infl uence society’s 
behavior.”2 

Like Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock and 
John Naisbitt’s Megatrends, Microtrends is 
a fascinating and informative study of the 
counterintuitive trends of our times. Freedom 
of choice and individualism are at all time 
highs, Penn notes, and we’ve moved from the 
Ford economy (where thousands of workers 
turn out the same car millions of times) to 
the Starbucks economy (where thousands of 
individuals order customized coffee products 
with or without caffeine, fat, or sugar). 

Academic librarians are already seeing the 
effects of this new society play out in how, 
when, and where we deliver library services. 
But what are the implications for the type of 
workforce and workplaces we want to create 
now and in the future? 

Five work-related microtrends 
Penn discusses five work related microtrends 
—working retired, extreme commuters, stay­

at­home workers, wordy women, and ardent 
amazons. He outlines the overarching trend, 
discusses the context, provides statistics, and 
comments on the individual, societal, and 
commercial implications. Here’s a brief sum­
mary of Penn’s five work­life microtrends: 

• Working retired. Few of us actually 
retire at 65, due in part to rising health care 
costs and limited retirement income. Penn 
notes this is reflective of our changing at­
titude toward work (we actually like or love 
it) and of the increasingly nontraditional 
view of retirement. With more baby boom­
ers working past 65, the implications for the 
nation are immense. The workforce will be 
larger. Younger workers will have to wait 
longer to move into leadership roles, and 
may, consequently, leave organizations and 
start their own companies. 

• Extreme commuters. Many individu­
als travel at least 90 minutes each way to 
work every day. According to Penn, the 
number of such commuters hit 3.4 million 
in 2000, double the number that existed in 
1990. Reasons for the rise include rapidly 
increasing home prices, quality of life is­
sues, and logistical reasons for dual­earner 
couples. These 3 million commuters (the 1 

Pat Hawthorne is director of library human resources at 
the University of California-Los Angeles Library, e-mail: 
path@library.ucla.edu, and Nicole A. Cooke is instruction 
librarian at Montclair State University in New Jersey, 
e-mail: cokken@mail.montclair.edu. Both are members 
of ACRL President Julie Todaro’s Presidential Program 
Planning and Steering Committee 
© 2008 Pat Hawthrone and Nicole A. Cooke 

214C&RL News April 2008

mailto:cokken@mail.montclair.edu
mailto:path@library.ucla.edu


percent needed for a microtrend) are con­
cerned about gas prices, are at greater risk 
of road rage, and may suffer health effects. 
This group has also created markets for a 
variety of industries —fast food meals that fi t 
into cup holders, satellite navigation systems 
with real­time traffic options, and a market 
for audio books and language tapes. 

• Stay-at-home workers. The opposite 
of extreme commuters, these 4.2 million 
individuals work from home 100 percent of 
the time. A 23 percent increase from 1990, 
these workers do not include the approxi­
mately 20 million employees who sometimes 
work from home. Such workers are possible 
because of laptops, high­speed Internet ac­
cess, Blackberrys, cell phones, and other 
technologies available at reasonable prices. 
Fifty­three percent of stay­at­home workers 
are women, and 58 percent run their own 
businesses. The majority is white, college­
educated, and work in management and 
professional jobs; 76 percent report high job 
satisfaction. Their average work week is 44.6 
hours compared to the 42.2 hours of full­time 
on­site workers. 

• Wordy women. The numbers of 
women in word­based professions such as 
journalism, law, marketing, and communica­
tions are increasing. As women become the 
majority of word workers, men may leave 
these professions. Conversely, women are 
not increasing their numbers in sciences 
or business fields. This trend refl ects the 
growing number of professional jobs open 
to women, and increasing the competition 
for library jobs. 

More with Mark Penn 

Want to learn more about Mark Penn and 
his new book? A brief book talk and Q&A 
with Penn can be found on the C­SPAN 
Web site and streamed as video at www. 
booktv.org/program.aspx?ProgramId= 
9053&SectionName=&PlayMedia=Yes. 
—Ameet Doshi, University of North 
Carolina-Wilmington 

• Ardent amazons. Women are choosing 
jobs that demand serious physical strength, 
such as sport and sport­related fi elds, fi rst 
responders in fi refighting and law enforce­
ment, military, and construction. 

What’s your opinion? 
How do these microtrends affect libraries? 
We know that many libraries are already 
seeing the impact of the working retired 
as librarians are not retiring as predicted 
rates. Will this help us staff our libraries in 
the next decade? Will more extreme com­
mutes affect recruitment? Will more library 
workers seek to work from home some or 
all of the time, and how will this impact 
library service? As women have more career 
options, how will this impact recruitment 
to the profession? 

We want to know your thoughts on 
these microtrends! Visit the “Working with 
and retaining new librarians” section of the 
ACRL Recruitment and Retention wiki, and 
share your thoughts about such trends on 
your career and your library, as well as on 
the profession and academic libraries in 
general.3 

If you are interested in topics such as 
these and their impact on the academic 
library work place, join us for the ACRL 
President’s Program at the 2008 ALA Annual 
Conference in Anaheim on Monday, June 
30, to hear Dan Ariely speak on his newly 
published book, Predictably Irrational: The 
Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions. 
Ariely will be joined by a panel of four aca­
demic librarians from around the country and 
a variety of types of institutions. 

Notes 
1. Mark J. Penn, with E. Kinney Zale­

sne, Microtrends: The small forces behind 
tomorrow’s big changes (New York: Twelve, 
2007), xiv 

2. Ibid., xx. 
3. The ACRL Recruitment and Retention 

wiki can be found at wikis.ala.org/acrl/in­
dex.php/Working_with_and_Retaining_New 
_Librarians 

April 2008  215 C&RL News