This year we are excited to offer five projects in our General Summer Internship Program! Each are unique learning experiences but all benefit from professional mentorship from Smithsonian Libraries staff, as well as internship programming opportunities and events from the Libraries and the Smithsonian Institution.
Category: Intern and Volunteer Updates
It is no secret that today’s job market is a dog-eat-dog world. With unemployment rates at record highs, the future that many college graduates see on the horizon is a grim and scary place. However, University of California, Berkeley has created a program to help better prepare their students for the post-graduate battlefield. The Externship Program creates opportunities for students to get hands-on experience in a chosen career field during their winter break. The program is made possible by UC Berkeley alumni who generously share their time with undergraduates who are ready to explore a career. Depending on the sponsors availability, the externships can range from one day to one month. Although many other notable universities such as Cornell, USC, Boston College, and University of Pennsylvania have similar externship programs, it is still a relatively unknown opportunity. Below, Haley and Kaylie share their experience working at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
Editor’s note: Rachel is an intern from the University of Maryland’s iSchool MLS program and has been with us for the past seven weeks. Her internship is coming to a close, so we’ve asked her to write a blog post to share what she has done as part of her internship. I have posted this on her behalf.
In January, Joel wrote about our plans to present the Taxonomic Literature-2 (TL-2) dataset as Linked Open Data, allowing for greater searchability and reuse. The main focus of my internship was to identify and investigate other data elements that could be converted to Linked Open Data.
Applications are now open for summer Professional Development Internships! Paid internship opportunities at the Smithsonian Libraries are designed for current graduate students or recent graduates interested in working in research and/or museum libraries. This year, applicants may select from six projects. These projects are in a wide variety of areas, including preservation, art librarianship and cataloging.
This post was written by Elizabeth Brunner, an intern at the American Art and Portrait Gallery Library September-December 2012.
Joseph Keppler was the predominant political cartoonist of the late nineteenth century. His creation of the magazine, Puck, in 1877 brought him into a national position that allowed him to influence people’s political views and opinions. The magazine featured cartoon and caricature lithographs created by Keppler. The National Portrait Gallery is fortunate enough to own a few of Keppler’s lithographs from the height of his fame during the early 1880s. However, as a bibliophile, I was far more excited to discover that the American Art and Portrait Gallery Library owns one of the 300 copies of a limited-edition book that features some of Keppler’s best lithographs. Published in 1893, this book served Puck as an advertising tool and as a way to promote Keppler’s lithographs and talent.
This post was contributed by Rachel Blier, an intern for the American Art and Portrait Gallery Library from June to September 2012.
One of my favorite parts of my time at the AA/PG library has been working with the rare books collection. Between the artists’ books, the unusual cartoons and caricatures in the Ray Smith collection, and the occasional doodle or signature from an artist, it’s a very exciting part of the library—and one that an ordinary visitor wouldn’t have the opportunity to see.
My name is Emily Somach and I am a new intern at the Smithsonian Institution Libraries. I am originally from the North Shore of Massachusetts but have been living in the Maryland/DC area since February. I graduated from Northwestern University in 2010 with a B.A. in English Literature and will soon be applying to the MLS program at University of Maryland. My internship here at the Smithsonian centers on the archival arrangement of files from the Institution’s Forum on Material Culture, and I will be working under the supervision of Mary Augusta Thomas. I also plan to help resurrect the forum’s newsletter and assist in its writing, editing, and production.