Partners

YOUmedia is a collaboration between the Chicago Public Library and Digital Youth Network, with generous support provided by The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Pearson Foundation through the Chicago Public Library Foundation.

Design Partners

The YOUmedia physical space was designed by a team of graduate students under the direction of Professors Drew Davidson and Jesse Schell from the Entertainment Technology Center at Carnegie Mellon University. Additional support for the build-out of the space was provided by Chicago Scenic Studios and US Equities.

The YOUmedia online space was designed by a design team under the direction of Katie Salen from the Institute of Play in collaboration Akili Lee from the Digital Youth Network.

Programming Partners

Chicago Public Library Foundation was created in1986 by visionary civic leaders out of the conviction that private resources are essential to keeping Chicago’s outstanding Public Library truly world class.

Established in the spirit of public/private partnership with the City, the Foundation is an independent, non-profit organization. In the 23 years since its founding, the Foundation has made grants totaling $34 million to Chicago’s Public Library.

The Digital Youth Network (DYN) at the University of Chicago's Urban Education Institute supports youth in developing new media skills that are personally meaningful and necessary in their interactions with friends and family, at school, after school, and in their communities. DYN is a hybrid digital literacy program that creates opportunities for youth to engage in learning environments that span both school and out-of-school contexts.

The Digital Youth Network model is one that explicitly combines the affordances of the different contexts where youth spend their time into one learning environment that not only develops youth's new media literacies but also creates meaningful opportunities for youth to use their new media literacies.

It is a model for the construction of a new youth-serving institution that is not bounded by walls nor time of day. The core of the model spans the worlds of school, home, and after-school activities, and provides youth with:

• access and training in the use of new media literacy tools
• meaningful activities where the development of new medial literacies is essential for accomplishing goals
• a continuum of established new media mentors (high school through professionals) who develop students’ technical skills, serve as role models, and provide students access to the communities of practice surrounding technology-based careers

In its partnership with the Chicago Public Library, DYN will support new ways of activating and exploring themes found in traditional literature through the development of multimedia projects and applied technology.