Strengthening society’s connection to knowledge by advancing our access to and understanding of the data that shapes AI.
The Institutional Data Initiative is a research initiative at Harvard Law School Library. We work with knowledge institutions—from libraries and museums to cultural groups and government agencies—to refine and publish their collections as data.
Our goal is to help build a vast commons of well-understood data, gather a diverse community to investigate and improve it, and affirm the role of institutions as stewards of knowledge in the age of AI.
We’re welcoming collaborations with institutions, inviting contributions from the AI and academic communities, and hiring researchers and community builders to join our team.
Get Involved
Stay informed
Keep in touch: Linkedin, X, Bluesky, Github, HuggingFace.
We recently released our first dataset of public domain books and are continuing to refine datasets in collaboration with our community.
Who we are
Founded at Harvard Law School Library. Born from the Library Innovation Lab.
Leadership
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Greg Leppert
Executive Director
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Jonathan Zittrain
Faculty Director
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Amanda Watson
Library Chair
Careers
The Institutional Data Initiative is forming a team of technologists and community builders to bring the public domain to AI.