This week, we’re proud to welcome the Maine Press Association into the Column Partner Program as our 16th association and 18th state represented.

“The Maine Press Association has worked tirelessly for years to preserve public notice in Maine,” says Diane Norton, Executive Director of the Maine Press Association. “With an established audience and solid visitor history to MaineNotices.com, it’s imperative we have a strong tech partner to make public notices even more accessible to our state’s citizens. Our association found that in Column.”

For decades, state press associations have served as the front-line, defending the responsibility that local newspapers hold as the established distributors of public interest information. Column is proud to support Maine Press Association’s efforts by redesigning their public notice website and expanding the accessibility of this statewide resource for citizens, as well as offering optional services — such as free public notice display sites and full-service public notice automation — to their newspaper members.

“We’re honored to partner with Maine. They’ll be the first state in New England to have an advanced API-enabled public notice site and we believe this is a meaningful step for the region,” says Jake Seaton, Column’s Founder and CEO.

This fall is shaping up to be an exciting time. Last month, Column publicly released the Column API, which will empower the next frontier for press associations’ public notice strategy. A systematized and interactive display of public notices not only increases the accessibility, value and usability of critical public information, it also introduces new future-proofing opportunities. An API that contains public notice information will enable press associations and their members to build new public notice coalitions with other stakeholders in their state — such as businesses and governments — who can find value in structured public interest data. By leveraging the most advanced technology for information disclosure, press associations and their members re-entrench themselves as the place where public notices belong.

We’re honored to have the Maine Press Association join us on our mission to make public information systems more valuable. Equipped with these new technology tools, Maine will lead the region on building the future of public notice by making more effective policy decisions through analytics. If you’re interested in hearing more about about our Partner Program, reach out at [email protected].