Internship Program
Procedures
The Archives & Rare Books Library of the University of Cincinnati provides internship opportunities for students interested in the study or management of archival collections or rare books study and librarianship. For more information on applying for this internship, view the procedures and instructions.
ARB Current and Past Internship Projects
McKenna Corey is the 2018-2019 NEH intern in the Archives and Rare Book Library. She is currently a senior studying Literary and Cultural studies here at the University of Cincinnati, and after graduating in May, she will pursue a Master’s degree in the same concentration here at UC as well.
Throughout her tenure as the ARB’s intern, McKenna will concentrate on multiple projects. Her primary focus will be on the organization and detailing of the Virginius C. Hall Jacobite Collection, containing over 500 rare books that document the Jacobite Rebellions (sometimes known as the War of British Succession) that occurred between 1688 and 1746. McKenna will also be building upon previously established intern projects, including further research on the Enoch T. Carson Shakespearean Collection, the Historical Textbook Collection, and maintaining the Rare Books Occasional, which is a blog that focuses on interesting rare books and artifacts in the Archives and Rare Books Library.
McKenna aims to utilize the knowledge and skills she acquires during the course of her internship to enhance her literary criticism, adding historical context to the perception and analysis of literature. She wishes to work in academia as she pursues her Master’s and eventually her PhD in the study of literature, and hopefully will pass on the skills she acquires here at the ARB to her future students and colleagues.
After completing the "Culture of Books and Reading" Honors seminar and a study tour to Edinburgh, Sydney Vollmer began working in the Archives & Rare Books Library as a student assistant in the spring of 2015. She became the ARB intern for the 2015-2016 academic year and was again awarded the internship for the 2016-2017 academic year. She graduated from the University of Cincinnati in 2017 with a bachelor's degree in marketing from the Lindner College of Business.
With the quadricentennial of William Shakespeare's death in 2016, Sydney spent the largest part of her first internship appointment creating a website that provided detailed information on one of the University of Cincinnatiâ's first major library collections, the Enoch T. Carson Shakespearian Collection, purchased and donated by William A. Procter in 1895. In addition to documenting the Carson holdings for the website, she also created an exhibit of UC's elaborate commemoration of the Shakespeare tercentenary in 1916. Over the course of the next two years, Sydney researched and wrote a number of informative blogs about Shakespeare's plays and characters, and, modern interpretations of the works.
Besides the Shakespeare work, Sydney created other new websites that highlight ARB's collections and UC's heritage with the Cincinnati community: the UC-Spring Grove connections, the history and lore of bookselling, the Virginius C. Hall Jacobite Collection, and The Irish in Cincinnati. For the latter, her work involved her enrollment in "The Irish in America" Honors seminar with a study tour to Ireland, with showcasing the work of students in the seminar that utilized the digitized 19th and early 20th centuries death records of Irish Cincinnatians. This student work represented research in these primary sources that had never been done before.
All of Sydney's work was created with the aim of sustainability, inviting future additions and enhancements to the content.
Melissa Schirmer started working as the Archives and Rare Book Library's intern in the fall of the 2013 academic year. Her main project was to compile and put together the Irish Literature Collection exhibit. This exhibit showcases ARB's extensive holdings of literature and drama by Irish authors and playwrites. Melissa also put together the exhibit for the William J. Lawrence Notebook Collection. The Lawrence Collection consists of 99 handwritten notebooks containing his research on the Irish stage from 1630 to 1911. Melissa's last official project was the creation of the Edinburgh Urban Ghost Story website. As part of an honor's seminar, "The Culture of Books and Reading," Melissa and class went on a trip to Edinburgh, Scotland, where they were challenged to collectively write a ghost story.
Melissa also helped move various past exhibits over to a new Wordpress platform to make those exhibits more accessible and easier to maintain. When UC's library websites needed to be moved to a new processor in the 2014 academic year, Melissa helped move ARB's content onto the new content management system.
Melissa will graduate in 2014 with a degree in English, Rhetoric and Professional Writing, and a minor in Communications. She hopes to work in children's trade book publishing where she can make reading her full-time job.
My name is Molly Gullett and I worked to process the SWOFC for the 2012-2013 academic year. I study History at the University of Cincinnati and will graduate in the spring of 2013. Upon my arrival to UC almost four years ago, I was fortunate to have received work in the Preservation Department of Langsam Library. There, my passion for historical objects, material culture and preservation flourished and my interest in rare books was born. In the fall of 2012, I was able to contribute to the organization and processing of the Southwest Ohio Folklore Collection.
I feel blessed to have been able to work in the ARB Library, as it continues to widen my view of the vast array of careers available involving rare and archival materials. I also thoroughly enjoyed being able to personally read through much of the collection and expand my knowledge of folkloristics. This opportunity has influenced the way I view the study of history and has influenced the way that I perceived culture and human interaction.
Upon graduation in the spring, I plan to travel to various countries in Europe and pick up interesting experiences along the way as well as explore what avenue of preservation-oriented study I will pursue in Graduate School.
Lauren Fink started work at the Archives & Rare Books Library in Summer 2011 as a Student Assistant. In January, 2012, she became the Library's intern, working on three projects. Her first project was to fully process the Nelson and Florence Hoffman Cincinnati Postcard Collection, a group of over 1,500 postcards reflecting the history and image of Cincinnati. From there she went on to process a collection of 53 calendar cards created by the Strobridge Lithography Company and donated by Gaylord Oscar Shepherd Jr. Her final project as intern was to research and create an exhibit about the Libraryâs books on dreams. Lauren completed her internship in June, 2012.
Jameson Tyler was ARB Intern in 2011-2012. His work involved creating an exhibit for the Historical Textbook collection which had recently been transferred from the CECH Library (formerly the Curriculum Resources Center). Created by former CRC librarian Gary Lare, the Historical Textbook Collection is comprised of American textbooks from the 19th century to the end of the 20th.
I'd like to tell you a little something about myself and my experience with the German-Americana collection here at the University of Cincinnati. I received my undergraduate degree in Modern Languages from Wright State University in 2007. While there, I studied German, French and Russian and have since begun independent study in Danish.
It has always been clear to me that I am at my happiest when I am either helping people learn or am surrounded by books. My natural inclination, therefore was to become a librarian and do both. I have completed my degree program, a Master's Degree in Library and Information Science from Kent State University. As part of the MLIS program at Kent State, students are required either to write a research paper or complete a practicum in which the student completes a deliverable project for an organization of his or her choice to be graded by an advisor at Kent State. Being that I have no real experience to speak of in a library setting, I decided on the latter, and began searching for a library with a collection which interested me. It didn't take long after first hearing about the German-Americana collection at The University of Cincinnati, to decide that it was the place for me.
The Archives & Rare Books Library’s 2009-2010 intern was Lilia Walsh, a University of Cincinnati junior majoring in Geography. Her project was related to ARB’s rare book holdings on the Arts & Crafts Movement, particularly imprints of William Morris and the Kelmscott Press. Associated Arts & Crafts books, such as those produced by American publishers Elbert Hubbard from his Roycrofters and of Thomas Mosher, also figure in the project that will result in an annotated bibliography of our holdings, the transcription and annotation of a Morris letter, and the design of a web exhibit.
Ms. Walsh became interested in William Morris when her parents wallpapered a room in their house with Morris’ “willow” pattern. An Honors student at UC, she took a special seminar called “William Morris and His World,” taught by art history faculty member Cindy Damschroder and Jane Carlin, former head of the College of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning Library. A 2009 summer Honors seminar with Archives and Rare Books Library head Kevin Grace led to the intern position because of her background in arts and books.
The web exhibit contains numerous images from the holdings as well as the annotated bibliography. The use of our Morris-related and Arts & Crafts monographs has increased dramatically over the past several years, serving several courses in art history, political science, English literature, history of the book, and graphic design. Thus, the project product serves both as a research tool to ARB’s Arts & Crafts books, and as a practical guide for students and faculty.
The 2008-2009 intern for the Archives & Rare Books Library was Ms. Christina Cooper. At the time of the internship, Ms. Cooper was attending Northern Kentucky University where she wass majoring in Integrative Studies, focusing in geography, creative writing, japanese, and photography. Experienced in working with archival materials and rare books, and in designing web exhibits, she fully processed ARB's holdings of the Cincinnati Park Board, a rich body of materials dating to the 19th century and including studies, reports, drawings, photographs, scrapbooks, and administrative records.
Lissa Kramer, a journalism major at the University of Cincinnati, was the 2007-2008 intern in the Archives & Rare Books Library.
Ms. Kramer’s project centered around on Clifton Magazine, the University of Cincinnati’s award-winning student publication which existed from 1972 to 1994. Consisting of fiction, poetry, essays, investigative articles, and photography,Clifton exhibited the best of student journalism talent, and is noteworthy for the era it covered, with its dramatic changes in race relations, social concerns, urban renewal, and campus issues.
Ms. Kramer indexed the run of the magazine for titles, authors, and subjects, and prepared a permanent web exhibit that illustrates each issue cover and contains the indices.
Her work on Clifton Magazine complemented an earlier project of the Archives & Rare Books Library, along with the Digital Projects Department, which digitized the student News Record from 1960 through 1970, thus providing a look at UC student journalism for almost four decades.