This article discusses what the growing generation gap among library employees mean for academic research libraries and for the profession. Viewed collectively, the members of the under-35 cohort are a harbinger of a new kind of academic library professional, one whose traits bear directly on the ability of libraries to thrive amid the continuing revolutions in scholarship, teaching, and learning. The generation gap in research libraries begins with the large proportion of young people who work at jobs that either did not exist for their older colleagues, or were not associated years ago with librarianship. Using the 2005 demographic data from the Association of Research Libraries, which collects information on the professional staffs at its member libraries, the author has isolated the nontraditional types of jobs and found that people in nontraditional positions accounted for 23 percent of the professionals at research libraries in 2005, compared to just 7 percent in 1985. But the most compelling aspect of the nontraditional population is its youth: 39 percent of library professionals under 35 work in such nontraditional jobs, compared with only 21 percent of those 35 and older. Nontraditional professional positions are not only growing in size and influence; they also pay more. Compensation is thus another factor separating younger and older library employees. Finally, most information-technology professionals in libraries are male (71 percent), which is not the case in other types of library positions (28 percent male).