diff --git a/.github/actions/base-cache/action.yml b/.github/actions/base-cache/action.yml
index 1c53deeb5e..05b1ddc227 100644
--- a/.github/actions/base-cache/action.yml
+++ b/.github/actions/base-cache/action.yml
@@ -40,6 +40,7 @@ runs:
           python -m pip install --upgrade setuptools
         fi
         make install-ci
+        make install-nltk-models
     - name: Save Cache
       if: steps.virtualenv-cache-restore.outputs.cache-hit != 'true'
       id: virtualenv-cache-save
diff --git a/.github/actions/base-ingest-cache/action.yml b/.github/actions/base-ingest-cache/action.yml
index 27b8676be8..dc9d5105a2 100644
--- a/.github/actions/base-ingest-cache/action.yml
+++ b/.github/actions/base-ingest-cache/action.yml
@@ -39,6 +39,7 @@ runs:
           python -m pip install --upgrade setuptools
         fi
         make install-ci
+        make install-nltk-models
         make install-all-docs
         make install-ingest
     - name: Save Ingest Cache
diff --git a/.github/workflows/ci.yml b/.github/workflows/ci.yml
index b4178406c9..3002dbb898 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/ci.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/ci.yml
@@ -174,6 +174,7 @@ jobs:
       run: |
         source .venv/bin/activate
         make install-ci
+        make install-nltk-models
         make test-no-extras CI=true
 
   test_unit_dependency_extras:
@@ -360,6 +361,7 @@ jobs:
         sudo apt-get update
         sudo apt-get install -y tesseract-ocr tesseract-ocr-kor
         tesseract --version
+        make install-nltk-models
         make test-unstructured-api-unit
 
   changelog:
diff --git a/Makefile b/Makefile
index d4bf50f6bd..5bda0044a1 100644
--- a/Makefile
+++ b/Makefile
@@ -15,17 +15,17 @@ help: Makefile
 
 ## install-base:            installs core requirements needed for text processing bricks
 .PHONY: install-base
-install-base: install-base-pip-packages
+install-base: install-base-pip-packages install-nltk-models
 
 ## install:                 installs all test, dev, and experimental requirements
 .PHONY: install
-install: install-base-pip-packages install-dev install-test install-huggingface install-all-docs
+install: install-base-pip-packages install-dev install-nltk-models install-test install-huggingface install-all-docs
 
 .PHONY: install-ci
-install-ci: install-base-pip-packages install-huggingface install-all-docs install-test install-pandoc
+install-ci: install-base-pip-packages install-nltk-models install-huggingface install-all-docs install-test install-pandoc
 
 .PHONY: install-base-ci
-install-base-ci: install-base-pip-packages install-test install-pandoc
+install-base-ci: install-base-pip-packages install-nltk-models install-test install-pandoc
 
 .PHONY: install-base-pip-packages
 install-base-pip-packages:
@@ -37,6 +37,10 @@ install-huggingface:
 	${PYTHON} -m pip install pip==${PIP_VERSION}
 	${PYTHON} -m pip install -r requirements/huggingface.txt
 
+.PHONY: install-nltk-models
+install-nltk-models:
+	${PYTHON} -c "from unstructured.nlp.tokenize import copy_nltk_packages; copy_nltk_packages()"
+
 .PHONY: install-test
 install-test:
 	${PYTHON} -m pip install -r requirements/test.txt
diff --git a/unstructured/nlp/tokenize.py b/unstructured/nlp/tokenize.py
index 116dd13996..44ca9cd4d3 100644
--- a/unstructured/nlp/tokenize.py
+++ b/unstructured/nlp/tokenize.py
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 from __future__ import annotations
 
+import shutil
 import os
 from functools import lru_cache
 from typing import Final, List, Tuple
@@ -15,6 +16,21 @@
 NLTK_DATA_PATH = os.getenv("NLTK_DATA", "/home/notebook-user/nltk_data")
 nltk.data.path.append(NLTK_DATA_PATH)
 
+def copy_nltk_packages():
+    local_path = "../../nltk_data"
+    if os.path.exists(local_path):
+        if not os.path.exists(NLTK_DATA_PATH):
+            os.makedirs(NLTK_DATA_PATH)
+        for item in os.listdir(local_path):
+            s = os.path.join(local_path, item)
+            d = os.path.join(NLTK_DATA_PATH, item)
+            if os.path.isdir(s):
+                shutil.copytree(s, d, dirs_exist_ok=True)
+            else:
+                shutil.copy2(s, d)
+        print(f"NLTK data copied to {NLTK_DATA_PATH}")
+    else:
+        print(f"Local NLTK data path does not exist: {local_path}")
 
 def check_for_nltk_package(package_name: str, package_category: str) -> bool:
     """Checks to see if the specified NLTK package exists on the file system."""