Jason Griffey’s LibraryBox Project Awarded Knight Foundation Prototype Grant

First and foremost, congratulations Jason!
We’ve been chronicling the development of Jason Griffey’s (librarian, author, speaker, developer) LibraryBox project for a couple of years.
Background and links below.
Earlier today, Jason posted on on his Pattern Recognition blog that the LibraryBox has been awarded a prototype grant by the Knight Foundation.
LibraryBox and 16 other projects received these grants in this round according to the Knight Foundation’s news release.
Here’s the official page listing the LB award.
What’s LibraryBox all about? In the words of the Knight Foundation:

To improve and internationalize LibraryBox, a device that provides digital access to information in areas and situations with limited Internet connectivity.

In his blog post Griffey includes this about the grant:

This is a huge benefit for libraries everywhere, as I hope it illustrates that libraries and librarians are doing important and worthwhile work as community connectors and innovators. More large grant agencies should be looking at what individual librarians are doing, and helping them make their communities better. I am very excited to be able to make the LibraryBox Project one that can help libraries and educators reach communities here in the United States and all around the world.

When LibraryBox 2.0 launched and went on sale four months ago we mentioned that Jason’s efforts are not only important because of what LibraryBox offers users but would also serve to “motivate other librarians (or groups of librarians) and libraries to develop new products and businesses.
If you’re not familiar with LibraryBox here are some infoDOCKET posts that will provide some additional info and resources.

• After 2 Years in Development LibraryBox 2.0 Goes On Sale Today for $150 (January 24, 2014)

• Jason Griffey Launches Kickstarter Campaign To Help Fund Development of LibraryBox 2.0 (June 28, 2013)

• Awesome! DPLA, SXSWLAM, UT iSchool are Distributing LibraryBoxen Around SXSWi (March 10, 2013)

• Open-Source LibraryBox Project Branches Out (The Digital Shift; July 12, 2012)

Filed under: Awards, Funding, Libraries, News, Patrons and Users