The past year has seen SHL transition from a structure whose principal infrastructure costs were borne by Stanford's School of Humanities and Sciences to a more loosely structured, self-supporting research collaboratory built around the work of its faculty leaders. Though the transition has posed numerous challenges, the result has been a revitalization of the lab and a refocusing of its portfolio of projects. The new website is being launched with the aim of providing a livelier presentation of this work in progress, as well as documenting the Lab's past activities and accomplishments.

CROWDS II is the continuation of a large-scale collaborative research project initiated in 2000 dedicated to examining the importance of multitudes in the modern era. The project's first cycle was completed in 2005 and involved: