My Own Cafe Project
Southeastern Mass Regional Library System
Kathy Lussier and Vickie Beene-Beavers
Kathy:
regional lib system info and entertainment portal for teens athat offers one-stop service for:
Statewide, regional and local electronic databases
Regional announcements of YA library programs and local community events
Immediate access to network's catalogs
ONline community
Saw need for outreach to teens, as well as help for local libraries' websites, which were small and static. Way to get teens using the libraries. Go out and meet teens where they were at - which was online.
Goals:
-publicize lib resources
-offer member libs who lacked the funds or personnel to maintain website
-create conversation w/teens
Teen participation has been critical at every stage of the project.
STarted with Teen Advisory Group. Met in person once, then went online (chat, blog, etc.). Got feedback on process. Interesting: how important face-to-face contact was at the beginning! Having that interaction is important to teens, to keep them ivolved.
Web developers conducted teen surveys and focus groups. (Co: Pixel Bridge)
Pixel Bridge recommendations:
-messageboards as medium for teen interaction - more interactive than blogs, on any topic. Safer alternative to private messaging - everything is out in the open.
-downloadable music - big thing teens doing on the web. Chose to have local bands submit their own music!
(Great idea!)
-community info - saw as way to make the site unique. Compete w/MySpace (lib hadn't heard of this yet at this time)
-college and job info
Questions They Addressed:
-would a library card be required for registration? big debate - ultimately decided yes. Once they create their account, don't need to enter that card number again. Needed that connection to library.
-how would music be selected? clean music criteria, but also have teens help choose
-who will monitor the messageboards? too much lag time if wait for librarian to be in office, so developed idea of moderating messageboards - has worked well!
-who will have admin access to the site? built this site to make things easier for librarians at these smaller libraries, so give teens limited admin access to help build content.
Lots of Names tried out for site - skoop, jolt, frizz, teenology, cranialcaffeine, cerebralcafe, etc.
Various logos tested. Big division in what librarians liked and what teens liked.
Designers provided them with three designs to choose from. The ones that highlighted the library resources the most were the ones rejected by them.
"Didn't want it to look like a library site." - one-click access to library resources, but good look and feel.
Ended up with a lot of info on the home page, have to scroll. Seemed odd, but works because of one-click access to stuff.
Tech Requirements:
-hosted off site on Win2003 server
-DotNetNuke - open source content mgt system using asp.net
-40GB hard drive, 512 MB RAM, 50 GB max data transfer per month.
(Note from Louise: I love that they gave us this info in their presentation! This is stuff that's often missed!)
Website Policy was redesigned. They decided not to open it to under 13yo. They noticed that the few less than 13yo got on, the conversation dropped in tone and level. Important to limit in order to keep primary teens interested in the site.
Conduct policy for online behavior. Teen moderators came up with much more specific guidelines about what could happen on boards.
Embedded RSS feeds in site, to keep things fresh. Feeds also covered in terms of agreement (not responsible for this content, etc.)
Vickie:
Promotion:
-t-shirts!
-did launch at mall, cuz the kids had been talking to each other for a while in teen advisory board, and they all wanted to meet up for launch
-got band to play at mall launch
-have had two successful mall kickoffs
-handed out info newsletter - for parents, teachers, other advocates
Librarian and Teen Collaboration in the AdminProcess
-NO budget for marketing - mistake! They did okay, but could have done more.
-they continue to communicate with teens throughout process
-large region, so talk to teens through communication option built into admin forms
-they had long conversations about use of language (she showed example) - the kids did their own rules and do their own policing.
Suggestions from users have led to new features
-have made recommendation for creativity center (being worked on)
- different backgrounds, etc. suggested. working on up to 5 skins that kids can use as background drop for their login.
-new marketing ideas - giveaways (tied to bibliographic instruction on online databases)
-poster contest - bookmarks made from winner (I got one)
Stats:
326 registered teens
76 users (both teen and staff) logged in 702 times during March 2007
nearly 11,700 postos on the board since Oct 2005
top messageboard poster - Bookwork - has more than 1600 posts
Teen idea: creativity center. Ability for musicians to upload their own music (before they came to the library and give to librarian, sent to webmasters). Kids will get it, review it, add to website. Also, artwork from teens themselves. Maybe eventually podcasts.
Best source of ideas has been their TEENS.
Kathy:
Can't compete with Yahoo, but with teens' help, can make it fun and creative for them.
Participation Inequality (Jakob Neilsen www.useit.net):
-90% of users are lurkers
-9% of users contribute from time to time
-1% of users participate a lot and account for most contributions
They've found this is true for their site, as well, which is a relief.
What's Next?
-Creativity Center
-building college and scholarship info
-expanding beyond the SE region. Lots of interest statewide.
Lessons Learned
-teens are comfortable in online forum, but face-to-face is still important
ex: one teen who wanted to start anime club, not enough interest at her library, linked with other teens and they go from library to library
-teens will take responsibility for their own community if you let them. You can always restrict later, but they tend to police themselves. Only two problems on site, both times the moderators handled it well.
-you can never budget too much money for publicity. $50K grant was used up before they got to that point.
www.myowncafe.org
April Guest Login
u: guest
p: daffodil
Q: at mall launches, did you have online access at time? A: no, wanted to but couldn't. Was still effective.
Q: what is turnover in teen moderators? How keep them engaged? A: twice/year send out an email to make sure still interested. have them check in 1-2 times/week. vacations and assignments can take them away. One library offers community service hours for work. Those who do it are there because they like the conversation. New rule: must have 20 posts before offered moderator position.
Q: partner w/schools to get artwork content? A: not launched yet, but school libraries are part of this environment. Hardest part, because many high school libs have them blocked due to interactivity! This summer, doing one book, one town reader's advisory (one school doing this). Hoping this will be model.
