The ostrom workshop at indiana university and the indiana university luddy school of informatics, computing, and engineering, in partnership with indiana university libraries, will plan to design…

The Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded the Trustees of Indiana University $308,838 on September 1, 2026, through the National Leadership Grants program (CFDA 45.312) to design and evaluate a proof-of-concept for artificial intelligence-enabled access and stewardship of heterogeneous social science databases in libraries and archives.

The Ostrom Workshop at Indiana University and the Indiana University Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, in partnership with Indiana University Libraries, will establish a governance framework and technical model to integrate artificial intelligence into structured data stewardship. The project targets research libraries seeking AI integration pathways, specialized research centers stewarding complex databases without scalable interface solutions, and data librarians and research data services units navigating AI adoption. The framework is designed to lower barriers to complex research data, ultimately serving educators, interdisciplinary scholars, graduate students, and civic learners engaging with questions of community governance, institutional design, and shared resource management.

Performance occurs in Bloomington, Indiana, with a completion date of August 31, 2028. The award is structured as a project grant, the assistance type used by IMLS for projects addressing critical needs of the museum and library fields with potential to advance practice through models, tools, research findings, services, practices, and alliances that can be widely used, adapted, scaled, or replicated.

The ostrom workshop at indiana university and the indiana university luddy school of informatics, computing, and engineering, in partnership with indiana university libraries, will plan to design and evaluate a proof-of-concept for artificial intelligence-enabled access and stewardship of heterogeneous social science databases in libraries and archives. The direct beneficiaries of this project are research libraries seeking pathways to integrate artificial intelligence into structured data stewardship, specialized research centers stewarding complex databases but lacking scalable interface solutions, and data librarians and research data services units navigating artificial intelligence adoption. By establishing a governance framework and technical model, the project seeks to equip these institutions to lower barriers to complex research data, ultimately serving the educators, interdisciplinary scholars, graduate students, and civic learners who engage with questions of community governance, institutional design, and shared resource management but currently lack meaningful access to the empirical record these databases contain.