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Category: Intern and Volunteer Updates

Fall and Spring Internship Opportunities

The Smithsonian Libraries still has several internship projects available for fall of this year and spring of 2013. Although these projects are unpaid, we are happy to work with your school to help you obtain credit. Below are a few brief descriptions. Please see our website (http://library.si.edu/internships) for more details and application instructions.

The Bella C. Landauer Collection

The Air Balloon

Intrigued by the “Song of the Wright Brothers” sheet music cover seen in last week’s National Aviation Day post? Read on for more information about the collection in this post by summer intern, Karen Anton.

I am Karen Anton, the National Air and Space Museum (NASM) Sheet Music Cataloging intern for the Smithsonian Institution Libraries.  I travelled from Bloomington, IN where I am pursuing a Master of Library Science (MLS) degree with a Rare Books and Manuscripts Librarianship Specialization at the Indiana University School of Library and Information Science and a PhD in Musicology at the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music. While at the Smithsonian this summer, I will be learning from Lowell Ashley, principal cataloger at the Smithsonian Institution Libraries.

Reading Reading Red

Reading Red foldout

“Where the fold should be / There is no fold” reads the entire tenth poem of Reading Red.  Reading this poem is a jarring experience: the book has many folds, extra folds.  Is the “fold” of the poem related to the physical construction of the book in which it is printed, or is it a statement about something outside the book?  As this poem makes clear, the work is concerned with the physical form of its presentation.

Artists’ book exhibit opening at the AA/PG Library

Intern Artists' Book presentationFor the past two summers, three art libraries, the Hirshhorn Library (HMSG), the African Art Library (NMAA), and the American Art Library/National Portrait Gallery Library (AA/PG) have hosted graduate library student interns through the Smithsonian Libraries Professional Development Internship to work on the three libraries’ artists’ book collections.

“Material Meanings” exhibit opens Wednesday!

We often think of the book as a container of information. A book’s text conveys meaning through reading. However, meaning can be expressed in other ways. Typography, ink color, blank space, paper, artwork, and binding also provide information to the reader about the artist’s project. Featuring artists’ books from the Smithsonian American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery Library (AA/PG), this exhibit investigates the way that book artists use material and visual features to make meaning.

Federal Art Project material in the Vertical Files

Index of American Design
Index of American Design

This post was written by Kate Wilson, a 2012 spring intern at the Smithsonian American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery Library (AAPG Library).

I have background and work experience in both library and archival science – I’ve worked equally in both types of institutions and enjoy the hands-on, primary resources I find in archival work but the interaction, service, and reference I get from working in libraries. The AAPG Library’s Art & Artist File combine my love of primary documentation and reference work, and it is in this unique collection that I found a trove of original promotional materials for the short-lived Federal Art Project, the fine arts arm of the Works Project Administration.