UNMC_Acronym_Vert_sm_4c
University of Nebraska Medical Center

Internship Experiences

Student workers exploring an exhibition on Level 8 of McGoogan Library.

McGoogan Library offers paid student internships on a semester basis.

Qualifications:

  •  Must be enrolled in undergraduate or graduate studies at a college or university
  • Do not need prior experience working with medical collections, special collections, museums or libraries. Training on object handling and database use will be provided
  • Will be paid bi-monthly at an hourly rate of $14. Students may elect to obtain course credit within a course of study at their home institution as well

What to Expect

Interns will be assigned projects that could include the following types of activities:

Artifact and/or Rare Book Cataloging and Housing

Types of Activities: inventory, rehousing artifacts, creating finding aids, and/or data entry for university archives, rare books, historical artifacts and/or artwork

Goals and Outcomes: make artifacts more accessible to the public, provide more depth to the exhibition program, and preserve historical knowledge for future generations

Digitization

Types of Activities: scanning and metadata creation for documents, images, negatives, slides, bound books, etc. from processed archival collections

Goals and Outcomes: enhance public access to collections and ensure preservation of historic materials through creation of a digital surrogate

Physical and/or Born-Digital Archival Processing

Types of Activities: inventory, refoldering collections, creating finding aids, metadata creation and/or data entry into ArchiveSpace or Preservica databases

Goals and Outcomes: make archives more accessible to the public, provide more depth to the exhibition program and preserve historical knowledge for future generations

Research and Exhibition Creation

Types of Activities: investigate provenance of objects, provide research support for oral history interviews, curate small rotating displays in the Wigton Heritage Center or the McGoogan Library, curate digital exhibitions

Goals and Outcomes: produce written documents, whether a research paper, catalog record, exhibit text, archival finding aids or audience analysis

Other Opportunities

Types of Activities: participate in department and all-staff meetings and engagement events, patron tours/research appointments, cleaning rotations in exhibition and storage areas

Goals and Outcomes: obtain the theoretical knowledge, skills and additional learning in the museum, archive and library science fields that prepares students for other positions and graduate studies

How to Apply

Students interested in applying for an internship should submit:

  • a cover letter
  • a resume
  • at least two references
Items can be emailed to Carrie Meyer, Associate Professor, Associate Dean, Robert S. Wigton Department of Special Collections and Archives.

Application and Processes Deadlines

  Spring Summer Fall
Application period opens September 1 February 1 April 1
Application review period October 15-31 March 15-31 May 15-31
Interviews and selection November 1-15 April 1-15 June 1-15
UNMC HR processes and background check December May July
Start date (dates negotiated with accepted applicants) 3rd or 4th week of January 1st week of June 3rd week of August
End date (dates negotiated with accepted applicants) 1st week of May 1st week of August 2nd week of December
Rate of pay $14/hr $14/hr $14/hr
Hours per week* 15-20 hrs/week 10-20 hrs/week 15-20 hrs/week
Number of weeks 16 weeks 10 weeks 16 weeks
Total hours 240-360 hours 100-120 hours 240-360 hours
*Dependent on credit requirements of home institution.