Internships

The following internships are available with the Digital Library of Information Science and Technology (DLIST). DLIST is a scholarly communication initiative of SIRLS & The Learning Technologies Center (LTC) at the University of Arizona. If you are a faculty in a LIS school, librarian, curator, or archivist interested in working with the dLIST internship program as a Faculty Sponsor or Supervisor, please let us know; prior experience with a digital repository is not required. DLIST is available at http://dlist.sir.arizona.edu.

Digital Collections Intern (1 summer, 1 fall, 1 spring internship each year)

This internship will provide practical experience in digital collection development. Specific areas of digital collection development may be chosen from the DLIST list of subjects. Under the guidance of the site supervisor, this DLIST intern will select a specific subject or topic, locate freely available digital resources for the topic, and create the preliminary metadata for these resources. Additional duties include documenting selecting criteria, refining existing collection development policy, and creating or modifying selection, evaluation and collections policies for new areas or as needed. Required coursework: IRLS 401/501 and IRLS 424/524

Cataloging & Metadata Intern (1 spring internship each year)

This internship will provide practical experience in cataloging digital resources using OAI-PMH compliant metadata such as Eprints or Dublin Core. Under the guidance of the site supervisor, this DLIST intern will create or enhance existing metadata for digital resources. Additional duties include writing and/or editing a Best Practices for Metadata Creation Manual and creating mini-controlled vocabularies for the DLIST subjects. Required coursework: IRLS 401/501; Highly recommended: Concurrent enrollment in IRLS 601 or 695e, if interested in creating a mini-thesaurus.

Intellectual Property (IP) Intern (1 fall internship each year)

This internship will provide practical experience in intellectual property, specifically rights management metadata, and the legal policies associated with digital libraries and repositories. Under the guidance of the site supervisor, this DLIST intern will research and identify rights metadata for digital objects, rights policies for journals in selected disciplines, rights policies for subject and institutional repositories. Additional duties may include creating or modifying existing privacy and other potential information policies for DLIST. Required coursework: IRLS 401/501 and 420/520; Highly recommended: Concurrent enrollment in IRLS 572 (if it is being offered).

Required Skills/Interests

• Basic computing skills (file management, directory structures, word processing)
• Ability to create HTML documents using Netscape Composer or raw HTML (not just with Microsoft products)
• Project management (interest in developing self-motivated time-on-task management skills)
• Communication (interest in developing fluency and skills with electronic and face-to-face (f2) modes of working and collaborating)

General Description

Each internship will be 3 credit units (135 hours) initially. If the project looks like it is more extensive, hours may be added after discussion with the DLIST Project Manager. The internship location may be either the SIRLS laboratory or the intern’s home (assuming PC and network access). Four f2f (face-to-face) meetings are mandatory during the course of the internship and exact times may be negotiated on a mutually convenient basis. The intern is responsible for developing the internship plan; in doing so, she/he will work with a faculty sponsor (see list of DLIST faculty sponsors below), faculty advisor (this may be the same as the sponsor), and the DLIST project manager and complete the plan of study (including approval) prior to the appropriate SIRLS internship deadlines.

Deadlines for Internship Applications

The deadlines (date by which internship plan is submitted and approved) are the same as for SIRLS individual studies/internships and are noted below:

• Digital Collections Intern: Summer Internship; Applications completed by April 1
• Intellectual Property Intern: Fall Internship; Applications completed by June 15
• Digital Collections Intern: Fall Internship; Applications completed by June 15
• Digital Collections Intern: Spring Internship; Applications completed by Nov. 15
• Cataloging & Metadata Intern: Spring Internship; Applications completed by Nov. 15

DLIST Internships as Career Preparation

DLIST internships prepare students for a wide variety of careers working with digital information in environments as varied as libraries, corporations, and non-profit or government sectors. Specific position titles may include: Information Architect, Metadata Librarian, Digital Librarian, Cataloger, Bibliographer, Indexing Specialist, Information Consultant, Information Broker, Copyright Compliance Officer, etc.

DLIST Faculty Sponsors and Internship Supervisors

If interested, please contact the DLIST Project Manager, Anita Coleman, School of Information Resources & Library Science, University of Arizona, Tucson. Email: anita.dlist@gmail.com, Phone: (520) 621-4026.