Library Innovation Lab
@harvardlil.bsky.social
A crowd of coders, lawyers, librarians, designers, & tinkerers building tools like Perma.cc & Caselaw Access Project at the Harvard Law School Library. Where
@institutionaldatainitiative.org got started.
🌐 https://lil.law.harvard.edu
@institutionaldatainitiative.org got started.
🌐 https://lil.law.harvard.edu
Podcast: Jack Cushman joins “Pioneers & Pathfinders” to discuss libraries shaping legal tech, digital preservation, and realities of legal AI. Listen: www.seyfarth.com/news-insight...
Pioneers and Pathfinders: Jack Cushman
Today, we’re joined by Jack Cushman, director of the Harvard Library Innovation Lab, where he and his team are reimagining how library principles can shape the future of legal technology. Jack is a…
www.seyfarth.com
October 31, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Podcast: Jack Cushman joins “Pioneers & Pathfinders” to discuss libraries shaping legal tech, digital preservation, and realities of legal AI. Listen: www.seyfarth.com/news-insight...
LIL fellow @maxy.bsky.social asked 14 scholars, archivists, designers, business leaders & engineers: "If you were given unlimited funding to design a system for storing and preserving digital information for at least a century, what would you do?"
Their answers:
lil.law.harvard.edu/generational...
Their answers:
lil.law.harvard.edu/generational...
Generational Data Interviews | Library Innovation Lab
14 Designs for Digital Preservation in 2025
lil.law.harvard.edu
October 15, 2025 at 2:50 PM
LIL fellow @maxy.bsky.social asked 14 scholars, archivists, designers, business leaders & engineers: "If you were given unlimited funding to design a system for storing and preserving digital information for at least a century, what would you do?"
Their answers:
lil.law.harvard.edu/generational...
Their answers:
lil.law.harvard.edu/generational...
Our Public Data Project Lead @mollyhardy.bsky.social writes about public data preservation and how it’s complicated by the artificial contemporary distinction between science and the humanities @scholarlykitchen.bsky.social
Guest Post - Rethinking Disciplinary Data Regimes - The Scholarly Kitchen
Between a political policy environment focused on defunding and deleting data collections – an environment in which little can be trusted – and an onslaught of new AI tools that feed indiscriminately ...
scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org
October 8, 2025 at 2:57 PM
Our Public Data Project Lead @mollyhardy.bsky.social writes about public data preservation and how it’s complicated by the artificial contemporary distinction between science and the humanities @scholarlykitchen.bsky.social
Join our team! LIL is looking for a Product and Research Manager to help create, shape, and execute on our portfolio of open knowledge projects. PRMs work across every piece of the LIL ecosystem, from software experimentation to convening of events. Learn more at careers.harvard.edu/job/product-...
Product and Research Manager
careers.harvard.edu
July 3, 2025 at 5:26 PM
Join our team! LIL is looking for a Product and Research Manager to help create, shape, and execute on our portfolio of open knowledge projects. PRMs work across every piece of the LIL ecosystem, from software experimentation to convening of events. Learn more at careers.harvard.edu/job/product-...
Thrilled to share that @maxy.bsky.social's "Century-Scale Storage" was nominated for a Webby Award!
You can vote in the "Best Individual Editorial Feature" category here: vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting...
You can vote in the "Best Individual Editorial Feature" category here: vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting...
Vote for the best of the internet
I just voted in The Webby People's Voice Awards and checked my voter registration.
vote.webbyawards.com
April 1, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Thrilled to share that @maxy.bsky.social's "Century-Scale Storage" was nominated for a Webby Award!
You can vote in the "Best Individual Editorial Feature" category here: vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting...
You can vote in the "Best Individual Editorial Feature" category here: vote.webbyawards.com/PublicVoting...
Reposted by Library Innovation Lab
As the @institutionaldatainitiative.org expands its mission, we’re announcing a collaboration with @bpl.boston.gov to develop AI-driven tools capable of accelerating new digitization at libraries across the world, starting at the Boston Public Library. institutionaldatainitiative.org/posts/using-...
Using AI to Accelerate Digitization at Boston Public Librarys
Today, as part of our mission expansion, we’re announcing a collaboration with BPL to develop AI-driven tools capable of accelerating new digitization of large collections at libraries across the worl...
institutionaldatainitiative.org
March 12, 2025 at 1:23 PM
As the @institutionaldatainitiative.org expands its mission, we’re announcing a collaboration with @bpl.boston.gov to develop AI-driven tools capable of accelerating new digitization at libraries across the world, starting at the Boston Public Library. institutionaldatainitiative.org/posts/using-...
Reposted by Library Innovation Lab
I'm pleased to announce we're expanding our mission at the @institutionaldatainitiative.org with an open call for institutional collaborators, new digitization at Harvard Law School Library, and additional support to advance this work. institutionaldatainitiative.org/posts/open-c...
Expanding Our Mission: An Open Call for Collaborators
Today, we’re pleased to announce an open call for institutional collaborators as new support expands the research capacity of the Institutional Data Initiative.
institutionaldatainitiative.org
March 5, 2025 at 3:36 PM
I'm pleased to announce we're expanding our mission at the @institutionaldatainitiative.org with an open call for institutional collaborators, new digitization at Harvard Law School Library, and additional support to advance this work. institutionaldatainitiative.org/posts/open-c...
Ed Summers at Stanford wrote this great deep dive of how and why we designed our data.gov archiver the way we did. Thanks for digging in, Ed, this is excellent. inkdroid.org/2025/02/17/n...
Bagging data.gov
inkdroid.org
February 19, 2025 at 7:16 PM
Ed Summers at Stanford wrote this great deep dive of how and why we designed our data.gov archiver the way we did. Thanks for digging in, Ed, this is excellent. inkdroid.org/2025/02/17/n...
We just launched a 16TB archive of every dataset that has been available on data.gov since November. This will be updated day by day as new datasets appear. It can be freely copied, and we're sharing the code behind it to help others make their own archives of data they depend on.
Announcing the Data.gov Archive | Library Innovation Lab
Today we released our archive of data.gov on Source Cooperative. The 16TB collection includes over 311,000 datasets harvested during 2024 and 2025, a complet...
lil.law.harvard.edu
February 6, 2025 at 9:23 PM
We just launched a 16TB archive of every dataset that has been available on data.gov since November. This will be updated day by day as new datasets appear. It can be freely copied, and we're sharing the code behind it to help others make their own archives of data they depend on.
Reposted by Library Innovation Lab
Penn is getting a lot of questions about Data Refuge. That effort no longer exists, but several efforts are currently active. I've created a doc from what I & others have suggested. I'll update as I hear more. Feel free to share or suggest: docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Data Rescue Efforts
Data / Website Rescue Efforts End of Term Crawl - The main coordinated effort to archive websites, but datasets have been more of a challenge. EDGI - They have been focused on environmental data. A ...
docs.google.com
February 3, 2025 at 4:14 PM
Penn is getting a lot of questions about Data Refuge. That effort no longer exists, but several efforts are currently active. I've created a doc from what I & others have suggested. I'll update as I hear more. Feel free to share or suggest: docs.google.com/document/d/1...
Last year we started a project to download and preserve public data. lil.law.harvard.edu/blog/2025/01... Since saving public data is in the news today — but is always needed — let’s talk about what you can do to help.
Preserving Public U.S. Federal Data | Library Innovation Lab
lil.law.harvard.edu
January 31, 2025 at 8:59 PM
Last year we started a project to download and preserve public data. lil.law.harvard.edu/blog/2025/01... Since saving public data is in the news today — but is always needed — let’s talk about what you can do to help.
What insights emerge when a librarian, a software engineer, and a legal scholar come together to experiment with Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) to explore over 800,000 French legal articles 🇫🇷?
Blog post: lil.law.harvard.edu/blog/2025/01...
Case study: lil.law.harvard.edu/open-french-...
Blog post: lil.law.harvard.edu/blog/2025/01...
Case study: lil.law.harvard.edu/open-french-...
January 22, 2025 at 8:35 PM
What insights emerge when a librarian, a software engineer, and a legal scholar come together to experiment with Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) to explore over 800,000 French legal articles 🇫🇷?
Blog post: lil.law.harvard.edu/blog/2025/01...
Case study: lil.law.harvard.edu/open-french-...
Blog post: lil.law.harvard.edu/blog/2025/01...
Case study: lil.law.harvard.edu/open-french-...
Reposted by Library Innovation Lab
I’ve been thinking so much lately about data storage, formats, inscription, archives & deep time for the #dataloss project.
So cool to see this piece come out from @harvardlil.bsky.social on CENTURY-SCALE STORAGE by @maxy.bsky.social
(ty @louravn.bsky.social!)
lil.law.harvard.edu/century-scal...
So cool to see this piece come out from @harvardlil.bsky.social on CENTURY-SCALE STORAGE by @maxy.bsky.social
(ty @louravn.bsky.social!)
lil.law.harvard.edu/century-scal...
Century-Scale Storage
If you had to store something for 100 years, how would you do it?
lil.law.harvard.edu
December 19, 2024 at 3:47 PM
I’ve been thinking so much lately about data storage, formats, inscription, archives & deep time for the #dataloss project.
So cool to see this piece come out from @harvardlil.bsky.social on CENTURY-SCALE STORAGE by @maxy.bsky.social
(ty @louravn.bsky.social!)
lil.law.harvard.edu/century-scal...
So cool to see this piece come out from @harvardlil.bsky.social on CENTURY-SCALE STORAGE by @maxy.bsky.social
(ty @louravn.bsky.social!)
lil.law.harvard.edu/century-scal...
"We picked a century scale because most physical objects can survive 100 years in good care. It is attainable, and yet we selected it because the design of mainstream digital storage mediums are nowhere close to even considering this mark."
lil.law.harvard.edu/century-scale-storage
lil.law.harvard.edu/century-scale-storage
December 13, 2024 at 2:08 PM
"We picked a century scale because most physical objects can survive 100 years in good care. It is attainable, and yet we selected it because the design of mainstream digital storage mediums are nowhere close to even considering this mark."
lil.law.harvard.edu/century-scale-storage
lil.law.harvard.edu/century-scale-storage
More news! @institutionaldatainitiative.org officially launched today. This massive effort was conceived at LIL by Greg Leppert, who's now leading the charge as executive director. Our mission to bring library principles to technological frontiers is embedded in IDI's purpose. Read more below!
December 12, 2024 at 9:47 PM
More news! @institutionaldatainitiative.org officially launched today. This massive effort was conceived at LIL by Greg Leppert, who's now leading the charge as executive director. Our mission to bring library principles to technological frontiers is embedded in IDI's purpose. Read more below!
Reposted by Library Innovation Lab
This is such a cool piece and presented in a beautiful format
Here it is, the longest piece of nonfiction I’ve ever written, CENTURY-SCALE STORAGE. The kind folks at @harvardlil.bsky.social let me investigate the present and future of digital storage, and how we steward and preserve our most treasured cultural objects lil.law.harvard.edu/century-scal...
Century-Scale Storage
If you had to store something for 100 years, how would you do it?
lil.law.harvard.edu
December 11, 2024 at 6:52 PM
This is such a cool piece and presented in a beautiful format
Happy to be here! 👋
December 11, 2024 at 10:29 PM
Happy to be here! 👋
Reposted by Library Innovation Lab
Here it is, the longest piece of nonfiction I’ve ever written, CENTURY-SCALE STORAGE. The kind folks at @harvardlil.bsky.social let me investigate the present and future of digital storage, and how we steward and preserve our most treasured cultural objects lil.law.harvard.edu/century-scal...
Century-Scale Storage
If you had to store something for 100 years, how would you do it?
lil.law.harvard.edu
December 11, 2024 at 2:04 PM
Here it is, the longest piece of nonfiction I’ve ever written, CENTURY-SCALE STORAGE. The kind folks at @harvardlil.bsky.social let me investigate the present and future of digital storage, and how we steward and preserve our most treasured cultural objects lil.law.harvard.edu/century-scal...
Reposted by Library Innovation Lab
It has crazy good design from friends Shelby Wilson and Alex Miller. If you like reading about libraries, archives, hard drives, codexes, monasteries, wars, disasters, space probes, and indictments of the current corporate and government order, this piece might be for you...
December 11, 2024 at 2:07 PM
It has crazy good design from friends Shelby Wilson and Alex Miller. If you like reading about libraries, archives, hard drives, codexes, monasteries, wars, disasters, space probes, and indictments of the current corporate and government order, this piece might be for you...
Reposted by Library Innovation Lab
Incredible essay about the importance and challenges of digital archival by @maxy.bsky.social, as well as the various imperfect strategies to achieve “century-scale” digital archives.
lil.law.harvard.edu/century-scal...
1/
lil.law.harvard.edu/century-scal...
1/
Century-Scale Storage
If you had to store something for 100 years, how would you do it?
lil.law.harvard.edu
December 11, 2024 at 5:53 PM
Incredible essay about the importance and challenges of digital archival by @maxy.bsky.social, as well as the various imperfect strategies to achieve “century-scale” digital archives.
lil.law.harvard.edu/century-scal...
1/
lil.law.harvard.edu/century-scal...
1/
The question is "simple".
This essay starts at the birthplace of the IBM 305 RAMAC, looks at the cloud, clay tablets, tape drives, distributed storage...But technology alone will never be the whole answer.
Maxwell Neely-Cohen is a writer, technologist & fellow at LIL.
Link below!
This essay starts at the birthplace of the IBM 305 RAMAC, looks at the cloud, clay tablets, tape drives, distributed storage...But technology alone will never be the whole answer.
Maxwell Neely-Cohen is a writer, technologist & fellow at LIL.
Link below!
December 11, 2024 at 3:34 PM
The question is "simple".
This essay starts at the birthplace of the IBM 305 RAMAC, looks at the cloud, clay tablets, tape drives, distributed storage...But technology alone will never be the whole answer.
Maxwell Neely-Cohen is a writer, technologist & fellow at LIL.
Link below!
This essay starts at the birthplace of the IBM 305 RAMAC, looks at the cloud, clay tablets, tape drives, distributed storage...But technology alone will never be the whole answer.
Maxwell Neely-Cohen is a writer, technologist & fellow at LIL.
Link below!
Hi! We're on here now too. A few things:
- We're hiring a software engineer! lil.law.harvard.edu/jobs/
- Help us find our people. Who should we connect with & what conversations should we jump in on? Tag us!
- Keep an eye out for a publication we're really excited about, coming out tomorrow :)
- We're hiring a software engineer! lil.law.harvard.edu/jobs/
- Help us find our people. Who should we connect with & what conversations should we jump in on? Tag us!
- Keep an eye out for a publication we're really excited about, coming out tomorrow :)
Careers | Library Innovation Lab
The Library Innovation Lab is growing knowledge and community by bringing library principles to technological frontiers.
lil.law.harvard.edu
December 10, 2024 at 9:52 PM
Hi! We're on here now too. A few things:
- We're hiring a software engineer! lil.law.harvard.edu/jobs/
- Help us find our people. Who should we connect with & what conversations should we jump in on? Tag us!
- Keep an eye out for a publication we're really excited about, coming out tomorrow :)
- We're hiring a software engineer! lil.law.harvard.edu/jobs/
- Help us find our people. Who should we connect with & what conversations should we jump in on? Tag us!
- Keep an eye out for a publication we're really excited about, coming out tomorrow :)