The Harvard Library Innovation Lab seeks paid, contract researchers with substantial technical skills to help us explore and document cutting-edge data storage platforms. At the core of this research is the question: how can important data be stored for the long term with the least cost and risk?
This is a great project for any technologist who enjoys exploring open source repos and testing how they perform in real world conditions; it may be particularly interesting to academic technologists or open source hackers looking for an excuse to learn more about peer-to-peer data storage and other strategies for long-term cultural preservation.
The project will include:
Work may be in person at Harvard Law School or remote. Funding is available for hourly contracts or academic stipends depending on the nature of your interest.
Email lil@law.harvard.edu with a résumé and brief statement of interest to get started.
Students: thinking about legal tech, civic tech, or cultural memory? We have options:
We're seeking paid research assistants with a web development background to help us build open source legal tech and civic tech tools like Perma.cc, Opencasebook.org, and Case.law.
We offer student fellow positions to provide mentorship to students working on independent projects in the field of open knowledge (legal tech, civic tech, library tech, online governance, etc.). Depending on subject matter and professor relationships, student fellow positions may or may not offer stipend or credit; please reach out to us to discuss.
Positions are open to students inside and outside Harvard, with a preference for students at Harvard Law School and Harvard University.
To apply, send a statement of interest to lil@law.harvard.edu.
The Library Innovation Lab offers a small number of stipended fellowships to people developing tools and communities to explore the future of open knowledge.
Fellowships are a particularly good fit for people— inside and outside academia!—with a track record of building tools or leading communities that advance the conversation about cultural knowledge and the internet, and who need financial and institutional support to take their next steps.
By "cultural knowledge and the internet," we mean questions like: how do established cultural memory institutions adapt to the internet age and help societies reconstruct and remember their history? How do societies govern themselves, coordinate solutions to problems, and decide who to trust in the evolving information landscape? How do we preserve today's knowledge for future generations?
In short, who are we, how did we get here, and where are we going? And who is "we" in a networked world anyway?
By "track record of building tools or leading communities," we mean that we want to see your theory of change and how it operates in the world: how have your beliefs about who we are, where we came from, and where we're going been translated to action, whether in code, in writing, or in community organizing, and what are your next steps?
More concretely, strong fellowship applicants could include:
Fellowships are individually arranged on a rolling basis, and may be any length from a week to a year. Fellows are expected to visit Harvard in person for a portion of the appointment, but need not be present full time. Stipends are available to support full-time work, but may be prorated depending on time commitment and other sources of support.
Email a résumé and statement of interest to lil@law.harvard.edu.
The Library Innovation Lab is a team of librarians, programmers, artists, and lawyers with a broad mission: to build open source tools and services, open to everyone and in the public interest, solving serious emerging problems from the unique perspective of the world's largest academic law library. On the tech side we work most often with Django, Vue, and Postgres.
The work and well-being of the Lab are strengthened profoundly by the diversity of our network and our differences in background, culture, experience, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, and much more. We actively seek and welcome applications from people of color, women, the LGBTQ+ community, and persons with disabilities, as well as applications from researchers and practitioners from across the spectrum of disciplines and methods.