The My Own Café project is a regional library system information & entertainment portal for teens that offers one-stop service to: Statewide, Regional and Local Electronic Databases Regional Announcements of YA Library Programs & Local Community Events Immediate Access to Network’s Catalogs Online community

MyOwnCafe.org Goals To more effectively publicize library resources to teens and families. To offer member libraries who lacked the funds or personnel to maintain a website that served the educational and recreational needs of year-old youth in the Southeastern Massachusetts Region. To create opportunities for teens to interact with library staff, initiate youth service program ideas and work with other local teens to develop a dynamic library community.

Teen participation has been critical at every stage of the project The web developers conducted teen surveys and focus groups before making recommendations. Between meetings, teens continued participation through a team blog. A Teen Advisory Group met in person and via chat during the site’s development.

Pixel Bridge Recommendations for My Own Cafe Messageboards as medium for teen interaction Downloadable music Community information College and job information

Questions for us Would a library card be required for registration? How will local music be selected? Who will monitor the messageboards? Who will have administrative access to the site?

The Name Game Skoop Jolt MASSFeed Frizz CranialCaffeine CerebralCafe Teenology

Initial Logos

Technical Requirements Hosted off site on Windows 2003 server. DotNetNuke – open source content management system using ASP.NET 40 GB Hard Drive, 512 MB RAM, 50 GB maximum data transfer per month.

It’s the library—only better.

February Saturday Kickoff Festivities at Independence Mall in Kingston, MA

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Librarian & Teen Collaboration in the Administration Process

Communication between librarian and teen administrators is ongoing and frequent through the use of our Administrative Forums sections.

Suggestions from My Own Cafe Users Have Led to Exciting New Features

Publicity Tools Developed by Teens

Recent Statistics 326 registered teens as of April users (both teen and library staff) logged in 702 times during March Nearly 11,700 posts on the boards since October Our top messageboard poster – Bookworm – has more than 1,600 posts.

Participation Inequality From Jakob Neilsen 90% of users are lurkers. 9% of users contribute from time to time, but other priorities dominate their time. 1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions.

The Teen Perspective

My Own Café 2.0 What next?

Lessons Learned Teens are comfortable in an online form, but face-to-face is still important. Teens will take responsibility for their own community if you let them. You can never budget too much money for publicity.

Questions? April Guest Login User Name: guest Password: daffodil