by David Alexander

THE ANN ARBOR DISTRICT District Library has submitted a grant application seeking money to fund a library-sponsored news service. The news service, preliminarily titled Civic Ticker, will operate as a living online encyclopedia about local events, much the way ArborWiki does.

The grant is part of a nation-wide effort by the Knight Foundation that poses the question “How can we leverage libraries as a platform to build more knowledgeable communities?” The grant amounts are undisclosed, and the selection process is underway with the first round of voting taking place Tuesday. The Knight Foundation trustees, with staff reccomendations, determine which ideas get the green light; the public can click the “applause” button on newschallenge.org to show support for a project, but those clicks do not bear on the board’s decision to approve a project..

As of Oct. 17, Civic Ticker had 52 “applause” on newschallenge.org.

Josie Parker, director of the AADL, said the project will work similar to ArborWiki, a local version of Wikipedia. However, the engine will have one distinct difference: it will allow readers to see what entries have been added and updated chronologically.

According to the AADL’s entry on newschallenge.org, the library lists Eli Neiburger, deputy director of the AADL, Mary Morgan and Dave Askins, founders of the now-defunct “Ann Arbor Chronicle,” Matt Hampel, creator of ArborWiki and Al McWilliams, principal at Quack!Media among the members of its team needed to see the project to fruition,

On Oct. 6, Askins and Parker appeared on the Lucy Ann Lance Show, a local AM radio show, to discuss Civic Ticker.

“If we are going to be inviting people to click two sentences in a news feed and then click the entire history of that topic, the entire history of that topic needs to be set up in a way that so that the expectation is that someone is going to be visiting that page from a newsfeed, and they are looking to see the most recent change that should be obvious change to that page,” Askins said on the show.

Parker said the project will allow anyone to contribute, but a few paid reporters will also likely be on staff. The details are still very vague, but the idea is to allow for contributors to establish a reputation.

“The fact that anyone can contribute and edit is actually a powerful tool against inaccurate reporting,” Askins said on the Lucy Ann Lance Show. “If you know that something is incorrect you don’t have to email an editor and ask for a correction.”

Despite the AADL’s listing of Neiburger as the lone administrator involved in the project — an entry submitted by Neiburger, Parker refused to allow him to be interviewed for this article. Parker ignored queries as to why Neiburger was listed as being involved in the project but was unavailable to speak about it, or, alternatively if he was not involved in the project, why he was listed, saying she “remains the contact person for the AADL.”

On a similar note, although he is listed at part of the Civic Ticker team, McWilliams said while he remains available to the AADL should it need his input, he added “My company has virtually nothing to do with this project.”

Additionally, Parker declined to comment on why readers should trust the AADL as a news source considering its effort to keep its problem with heroin overdoses in the bathrooms of the its downtown branch from the public. Further, Parker dismissed concerns of having a state-sponsored news source. When asked whether the library would be more akin to a publisher, Parker said the AADL is trying to avoid traditional publishing terms.

“At a certain point there would have to be an editor-type involvement, but that wouldn’t be the library,” she said. “The library’s role would be more administrative … That doesn’t make the library the publisher. That doesn’t make the library the editor. That doesn’t make the library in control of news. ”

One of the challenges in the proposal, Parker said, is creating software that does what the Civic Ticker aims to achieve. Parker did not mention who would be in charge of developing the software, again saying that everything regarding the Civic Ticker project is still in the preliminary phase. Civic Ticker’s goal is to expand on the ArborWiki concept. ArborWiki founder, Matt Hampel, is also listed on newschallenge.org as part of the Civic Ticker team.

Hampel initially seemed enthusiastic about the prospect of talking about Civic Ticker, but reneged on agreeing to an interview for this article in light of the project’s upcoming review for approval Tuesday, saying in a text message and email correspondence that “I think it would make sense to postpone a discussion of the project until that first hurdle is passed.” and “I think it makes sense to see whether it advances.”

Despite Parker and Hampel saying that Askins and Morgan will be important to the project, the contact info they provided for the husband and wife duo was the information on the “Ann Arbor Chronicle” website. Emails to those addresses bounced back, and messages left at those numbers yielded no return calls at press time.

Parker also doesn’t see a connection between the reputation of the library as a news source and its board’s refusal to make video of its meetings public, which it has repeatedly voted against. The meetings are open, and it publishes it minutes, as is required by law, she said.

“The library board is as open as as its required to be. And it is [a] public meeting, so to say that just because the library doesn’t do one thing that someone thinks it might do to make board meetings more accessible and more exposed, doesn’t make the library less transparent to the general public,” she said. “I think it depends on what lens you look through. If you look through a lens that is reported inaccurately on an institution, you might ask [whether the library is a reliable news source]. But there is more than one lens.”

Refinement of the proposals continues through Oct. 28, and the final phase, evaluation, begins Oct. 29. Grant recipients will be notified in January.