Internship Listings
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), a leading Jewish humanitarian assistance organization that has been engaged in rescue and relief activities for Jewish communities across the globe since 1914, is excited to offer internships within preservation, digitization, metadata and processing / arrangement projects for its text, photograph, film, video and oral history archival collections and indexing project.
The JDC Archives includes over 3 miles of text documents, 100,000 photographs, a research library of more than 6,000 books, 1,000 audio recordings including oral histories, and video recordings. The JDC Archives text collection database currently comprises of over 300,000 digitized pages that are open to the public.
All internships are unpaid. The expected schedule is 12-20 hours per week. Internship options are available in the NY office located in midtown Manhattan. To apply please send resumes to internships@jdc.org
We look forward to hearing from you!
Library
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee seeks an intern to aid in the automation of its corporate library. JDC Archives holds 6,000 thousand books and periodicals related to 20th century Jewish history and culture worldwide. Our goal is to catalog and arrange the library materials in order to gain intellectual control and provide easier access to the materials for both internal staff and visiting researchers.
Responsibilities include:
- Copy-cataloging, classification, and processing of books
- Identifying books in need of repair and performing basic book repair
- Assisting with development of corporate library lending policies and procedures
Qualifications:
Prefer an upper-level undergraduate, graduate, or recently graduated student interested in a career in libraries, archives, and/or Jewish studies. The following strongly recommended: basic understanding of cataloging principals, MARC, and classification systems; subject knowledge and/or strong interest in Jewish history and literature.
Photograph Collection
The Photo Collection of the JDC Archives contains over 100,000 images. These photographs offer a rich historical overview of activities conducted by JDC for 10 decades in over 90 countries around the world. More than 52,000 photographs have already been digitally scanned.
The Archives is seeking an intern to assist us with the cataloguing and preservation of the photograph collection.
Responsibilities include:
- Preparing original photographs for archival storage and scanning
- Integrating new photographs into existing cataloguing system
- Entering and copy-editing information into the archives database
Qualifications:
A familiarity with Word, Excel and database procedures is recommended. Library or archival training is preferred. Ideal candidate will have an interest in photography or pictorial history.
Indexing Project
The JDC Names Index is an indispensable resource tool for genealogists, personal historians, and scholarly researchers alike. Over 500,000 names have been indexed from historic documents and client lists of those who received JDC aid, financial or otherwise. Currently indexed material includes lists of people helped from 1914 to 1974.
The JDC is seeking interns to assist in indexing important historic lists for publication in our database. This is perfect for those with an interest in Jewish or general history, genealogy, the non-profit sector, library science or archival work.
Responsibilities include:
- Researching new documents to be indexed
- Cataloguing names directly into database
- Administering quality control
Qualifications:
General computer skills and high attention to detail are required. An interest in history and genealogy are highly recommended.
Text Collections
The JDC Archives includes over 3 miles of text documents, spanning 1914 to the present, and chronicles JDC’s activities all over the world in astonishing detail. Because of JDC’s intense involvement in so many of the epic human struggles of the 20th century, the Archives have one of the most significant extant archival collections for the study not only of the Jewish people, but of the broader context of humanitarian assistance as well.
JDC is seeking an intern to process and arrange these valuable institutional records of the organization’s activities.
Responsibilities include:
- Arranging and describing historic records of the organization
- Conducting necessary research to effectively describe the content and condition of materials according to institutional standards
- Updating inventories and finding aids for collections
Qualifications:
Interest in archives and information science is recommended. Experience processing archival records preferred, but not necessary. Concurrent coursework in Archives, Library Science, Museum Studies, Political Science, or History recommended.
Audio-Visual Media Collections
Our global archives contain over 1,000 films and videos, which range from early silent films depicting JDC’s work in the former Soviet Union to more recent footage of its humanitarian work in countries such as Hungary, Ethiopia and Rwanda, as well as over 200 oral histories and eyewitness accounts that testify to JDC’s efforts to meet needs around the world at critical moments in Jewish and world history over the past century.
JDC’s audiovisual collections comprise one of the most comprehensive and significant records of modern Jewish history in the world. We eagerly look forward to working with an intern on projects to preserve, reformat, and provide access to these historic collections. Interns are encouraged to focus on a particular region of the world or particular era in their work.
Responsibilities include:
· Conducting research into archival records, including film/video production files, to locate and identify original footage and to determine the relationship between films in storage and access copies held on-site at JDC
· Developing preservation and collections management plans, including researching the feasibility of in-house transfers vs. using vendors
· Contacting outside vendors for video and audio materials, determining costs, creating lists of necessary equipment, etc.
· Assessing and possibly reformat oral histories held on audio cassettes;
· Evaluating transcripts by listening and identifying excerpts from oral histories for potential use on the JDC Archives website
· Identifying potential funding sources for additional preservation / reformatting processes, and research and writing necessary to show the historical significance and potential impact of reformatting specific collections
Qualifications:
Interest in archives and information science is recommended. Experience processing archival audio-visual materials is preferred, but not necessary. Concurrent coursework in Archives, Library Science, Museum Studies, or History.
Digitization Project
The JDC Archives includes over 3 miles of text documents. The digitization project is grant-funded with a goal to digitize 1.8 million pages.
Responsibilities include:
- Transforming text based files into spreadsheets to prepare for conversion into EAD-encoded XML
- Formatting and publishing EAD encoded finding aids
- Standardizing item-level creator metadata to align with local authority files
- Folder-mapping, which involves indentifying start and end of folders within sets of digital images rendered from microfilm
- Verifying that digital images received are in accordance with institutional standards
Qualifications:
Knowledge of EAD, XSLT, XML, and familiarity with archival and digitization standards.
