Photo Illustration made with images from Flickr users Thomas Hawk and square(tea).

The Knight News Challenge on Libraries is now closed. We received more than 600  entries and look forward to reviewing them all. Thanks to everyone who submitted their ideas and participated in the conversation around our question, How might libraries serve 21st century information needs? Here’s what happens next:

We have assembled a group of 18 experts, identified as “readers” on newschallenge.org, to help us review the submissions and select a group of semifinalists. Over the next few weeks, these readers may ask questions in the comment section of your entry, so please stay alert for emails notifying you about their questions.

On April 15, all applicants will be notified whether or not they have been selected to move forward to the next round.

We may ask some semifinalists to provide answers to additional questions to help us better understand the scope of the project. These answers will be due back to us on April 22.

On April 25, we will gather a second set of outside advisers to assist us in selecting a group of finalists.

On June 13, after conducting a series of interviews with the finalists, we will recommend a group of projects to Knight’s board of trustees. These winners will be announced on June 25 at the American Libraries Association Annual Conference in Orlando.

See below for a list of individuals who will be reviewing the applications at newschallenge.org for the first round. If you have any questions, please email [email protected].

Here are our readers:

• Georgia Bullen | Open Tech Institute | @georgiamoon

• Olivier Charbonneau | Concordia University | @culturelibre
• Chris Coward | University of Washington | @chriscoward
• Josh Greenberg | Alfred P. Sloan Foundation | @epistemographer
• Stephen Houser | Twin Lakes Library System
• Crosby Kemper III | Kansas City Public Library | @crosbyk
• Melody Kramer | 18F* | @mkramer
• Andrew Krzmarzick | GovLoop | @krazykriz
• Erie Meyer | U.S. Data Service | @Erie
• Jen O’Brien Cheek | Farmers Market Coalition | @jenlOBrien
• Meaghan O’Connor | D.C. Public Library | @megoc
• Lisa Peet | Library Journal | @lisapeet1
• Stephanie Pereira | Kickstarter | @happeness
• Francesca Rodriquez | Madison Public Library Foundation | @frodriquez
• Matt Stempeck | Microsoft | @mstem
• Rebecca Williams | Johns Hopkins University Center for Government Excellence |  @internetrebecca
• Andromeda Yelton | @ThatAndromeda
• Katie Zhu | Medium | @ktzhu

Thank you to our readers and to everyone who submitted an application. We also thank everyone who contributed feedback and asked questions on the platform. In addition, we would like to thank all of you who continued the conversation on our KnightBlog.

Keep an eye on the blog for additional updates, and follow #newschallenge on Twitter. You can also reach us with questions on Twitter via @knightfdn and @heychrisbarr, or via e-mail [email protected].

Nina Zenni is a media innovation associate at Knight Foundation.