Teen Library Site: My Own Cafe

If you're building a teen website for your library, or are interested in what online services you can provide for teens, you absolutely must check out My Own Cafe, a website from the Southeastern Massachusetts Library System.  The site was originally funded by an LSTA grant--money well spent.  The site's strength is that it provides an online space for teens, without too much of the standard librarian intervention or "oh wait, let me teach you something"-itis (though they do have plenty of information about online safety on the site).  Aaron Schmidt has an extensive interview with two of the people responsible for My Own Cafe over on his blog, walking paper. 

Here is a sampling of some of the things they're offering:

• message boards for the teens to post to directly once registering for free
• local musician profiles
• downloadable music (Creative Commons licensed--whoo hah!)
• an iPod giveaway
• homework and reference help from their Info Center
• local events
• polls
• local and national news headlines

If you could fold one or two of these elements into your library's teen site, you'd be in good shape.  But all of them in one place equals a stupendous example for the rest of us to follow.  Congratulations SMLS!