An initiative of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Knight News Challenge on Libraries launches on February 24, 2016, and offers applicants a share of more than $3 million for ideas centered on libraries as they transform to accommodate the evolving needs of our communities. Knight views libraries as important institutions that can play an essential role in building more informed and engaged communities, and recognizes that libraries have the power to connect people and ideas, and build stronger democracies. This is the second Knight News Challenge on Libraries; winners of the first challenge were announced in January 2015.

Please join us to explore the future of libraries and discuss potential ideas for the News Challenge. Chris Barr, Knight Foundation Director of Media Innovation and former library challenge winners, Jason Griffey and Jenica Rogers from Measure the Future, will lead the discussion on emerging trends in the library space, answer any questions you may have about applying, and share how you can contribute to the challenge. 

Presenters: Chris Barr, Knight Foundation Director of Media Innovation; Jason Griffey and Jenica Rogers from Measure the Future

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Webinar Attachments

• View slides (pdf)
  
• View chat (xls) 
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Related Resources and Links

• Knight Library Topic
  
• Challenge Brief
• Challenge FAQs
• Blog Post: Knight News Challenge on Libraries opens for applications Feb. 24
• Blog Post: Ask questions about the Knight News Challenge on Libraries
• 2015 winners of Knight Foundation News Challenge on Libraries (and all 676 originally submitted ideas!)
  
• Video: Recipients of Knight News Challenge for Libraries Provide Updates at ALA Midwinter Meeting 2016, Library Journal
• WebJunction news post: Knight News Challenge Wants to Support Your Big Ideas
• Additional links shared in chat:
  • Prototype winner - Virtual Privacy Lab sjpl.org/privacy
  • "Citizen Science/History folks, we (FactMiners) submitted both a News Challenge and a Prototype Fund entry. Here is an article on Medium that reflects on the experience and includes our entry: https://medium.com/factminers-musings/ground-truth-and-the-knight-prototype-fund-dd609696d120#.vdamqbqdu"
  • Internet Archive's winning project from 2015: http://www.knightfoundation.org/grants/201550350/
  • Aspen Institute’s report and action guide:
    http://www.libraryvision.org/
  • "Our 'local memory' entry from the #TextSoup2SmartData team will harness the crowdsourcing energy of alumni to do ground truth curation of the digital archives of college and university student newspapers. See #RTPx for example of Text Soup problem: https://medium.com/w-l-tall-tales/introducing-ring-tum-phi-exposed-4d16073a33ab#.tmfa3ffkh"

Responses to additional questions not answered in session:

• Are you as interested in the more ephemeral impact of programming as well as long-term, "marketability," or scalability?

Yes. Both aspects are extremely important. Marketability or scalability are something we look at later in the review process. More so than anything, we are looking for projects that are thinking about their intended audience and how they have come to understand the needs of their users. We are definitely interested in funding projects that can be adopted and tested. For the first round of the challenge, however, we are more interested in the idea. 

• Is there a stronger focus on: (1) news gather; (2) leveraging technology to be more engaged; or (3) using libraries to build community?

We are interested in all of the above, with no stronger focus on one in particular. All of these approaches are something we would love to see come through our challenge.