Museum Studies

November 6, 2023, Filed Under: Uncategorized

LILIAS Benson Internship Spring 2024

DIGITAL SCHOLARSHIP SPRING 2024 INTERNSHIP

LLILAS Benson seeks interns to conceive, develop, support, and launch digital scholarship efforts. Interns will be exposed to digital scholarship theory and a variety of technical skills through assigned readings, workshops, and projects. Working closely with Digital Scholarship staff, they will design and/or implement a project based on their academic and professional interests that undertakes a combination of the following work:

Learn how to use digital tools to analyze and present research data and/or digitized primary sources from the Benson and Latin American partner organizations;
Create structured and unstructured datasets for research and teaching using automated methods;
Work with community and research partners in Latin America and the U.S. to develop community-based projects (e.g. provide multilingual training materials on digital tools, create public-oriented digital projects, visualize community data)
Design K-12 and undergraduate teaching resources based on digital scholarship praxis with data and/or special collections; and
Support/lead online classroom and public workshops on digital tools for local, national, and international audiences

The internship program will be hybrid (onsite at the Benson Latin American Collection and Zoom), consisting of 10 hours a week for 15 weeks. The internship begins Monday, January 22, 2024 and ends Friday, May 10, 2024, with a break March 11-15 (Spring Break). The intern’s schedule must be within the hours of 9am-5pm, Monday through Friday. The intern will receive an hourly wage of $20 per hour, minus income tax.

QUALIFICATIONS

Although no prior experience is required, a strong interest in digital methods and tools is preferred. Applicants must be UT upper-division undergraduates or graduate students. A working proficiency in Spanish and Portuguese is preferred, but not required if the applicant proposes to work on specific English-language collections within our U.S. Latine and Black Diaspora holdings.

Applicants must be enrolled in at least six semester credit hours for Spring 2024. Class credit through CoLA’s Initiative for Digital Humanities is possible. However, we are unable to provide tuition assistance at this time. Applicants must also confirm with their academic advisors that they are permitted to have a 10-hour appointment during Spring 2024.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE

Students must apply by FRIDAY, NOVEMBER10, 2023 through this Qualtrics form: https://utexas.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9tqO5RetyioiObQ

You will be asked to provide the following information in the form:

Your full name, email, UT EID, department & college/school, field/area of study, classification, language proficiency, and research interests
Name, title, affiliation, and contact information for three academic and/or professional references
Answers (max 1,200 characters for each response) to the following prompts:
- What is your envisioned career path after graduation?
- What specific element(s) of the internship appeal to you the most, and why?
- What would your internship project be given the examples provided in the job posting?
Resume/curriculum vitae

If you encounter issues or have questions, please contact Albert A. Palacios (aapalacios@austin.utexas.edu).

The review will be based on the relevance of the training obtained through the program to the applicant’s academic interests, research topics and methods, and/or career path. Notifications will be sent by early to mid-December.

October 23, 2023, Filed Under: Internship

Collections Management and Exhibitions Intern, The Briscoe Center for American History – Spring 2024

The Briscoe Center welcomes applications for semester-long Bridging Disciplines internships in exhibitions and collection management. For internships in spring 2024, interns will contribute to the ongoing care and documentation of material culture objects, as well as assist with preparation for spring and summer exhibitions.

Material culture objects include the personal and professional belongings of journalists, politicians, photographers, musicians, educators, and activists in the Briscoe Center’s collections. These items could include clothing, special mementos, awards, or artwork, but the variety of such objects is wide-ranging depending on the person or organization and their life pursuits. Interns will work with collections prioritized for processing, although there can be a simultaneous opportunity to work with a collection aligned with personal interests.

The internship would suit someone interested in museum studies who would like to gain hands-on experience managing 3-D objects not usually processed by archivists, who often handle only paper-based items such as manuscripts or photographs. Interns will assist staff with cataloging and housing objects as well as managing their information in the object database. In addition, interns will help with exhibition research and organization, including work in the Richard N. Goodwin and Doris Kearns Goodwin Archive, and the John Tongate Cowboy Boot Collection.

The internship will be based at the Briscoe Center’s Research and Collections Division, with the possibility of collection management tasks performed remotely for 160-180 hours per semester.

Example tasks include:

creating metadata (information about the object) in the object database
photographing objects
housing items in archival storage containers
researching and assigning subject terms for objects to promote discovery and research
writing condition reports
organizing and maintaining exhibition checklists
research using primary source materials

Candidates should be:

interested in history and in working with primary source materials
interested in close looking and writing about/describing objects
familiar working with databases and spreadsheets
responsible and comfortable working independently
able to organize and manage detailed information
available during the center’s working hours: M-F, 9-5
although training will be provided, some prior experience with museum and archival collections is helpful
experience with camera photography is also helpful

To apply: applicants should submit a letter of interest and a resume to Jill Morena, Registrar for Exhibits and Material Culture: jmorena@austin.utexas.edu

Application deadlines: for the 2024 spring semester, please apply by December 1, 2023.

About the Briscoe Center for American History:

Through stewardship, scholarship, and outreach, the Briscoe Center for American History cultivates historical knowledge and fosters exploration of our nation’s past.

As a leading history research center, we collect, preserve, and make available archival evidence that encompasses key themes in Texas and U.S. history. Researchers, students, and the public use our collections for a wide range of academic, professional, and personal uses.

Archival collections also inspire the center’s own projects, including books, exhibits, programs, films, and educational materials. The Briscoe Center is an organized research unit and public service component of The University of Texas at Austin. For more information, see https://briscoecenter.org/.