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Internship Opportunity: Paid BHL Virtual Reference Internship

Here at BHL, we have partners all over the world, and we try to coordinate our scanning efforts with our partner libraries to ensure that critical content is scanned with maximum efficiency and minimal duplication. This coordination includes collaborating to scan the nearly 2,000 scanning requests we’ve received since 2010. We have a variety of tools and established workflows to help us do this.

Are you a student pursuing your Library Science or Information Management Masters degree or a recent graduate? Do you have a passion for reference work and digital libraries? Do you want to learn how the largest digital library for biodiversity science manages digitization efforts on a global scale? Do you want to help us grow our collection of over 40 million digitized pages of open access biodiversity literature? Do you want to gain real-world library experience that can help prepare you for a lifetime of library work? 

Then the paid BHL Virtual Reference Internship, hosted through the Smithsonian Libraries, is just for you! View the full internship description and learn how you can apply today by scrolling to the bottom of this webpage: http://library.si.edu/internships/2013-professional-development.

Due Date for Applications: March 11, 2013

Internship Description:

Biodiversity Heritage Library Virtual Reference Intern

  • Location of internship: National Museum of Natural History (Washington, DC); virtual work options also available.
  • Desired knowledge/skill sets (include education level): Students pursuing a Masters in Library & Information Science or recent graduates of an accredited MLIS program. Knowledge of LC Subject Headings and Name Authorities, XML exports and metadata cross-walking, MARC21 Fields and standard cataloging practices are highly desirable, but not required. Students with an eagerness to learn more about digital librarianship, virtual reference work and/or cataloging are strongly encouraged to apply.
  • Brief description of project: The Biodiversity Heritage Library is the world’s largest open access digital library of natural history literature (http://biodiversitylibrary.org/). BHL Virtual Reference Interns will work closely with the BHL collections team to process scanning requests received from users and issue digitization assignments to the appropriate library within the BHL’s 14-member international library consortium. Interns will utilize an issue tracking system to manage the scanning request workflow. Routine activities will include the need to research literature citations provided by users, investigate BHL member consortium library holdings to determine the best scanning candidate, monitor requests as they are processed by BHL staff, and correspond with users. Interns will also work in the collection’s back-end database to correct bibliographic metadata for BHL titles and volumes as needed.

Questions or comments? Send us feedback or write to feedback@biodiversitylibrary.org.

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February 11, 2013
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