Title: The Elvira Growdon Internship for Collections Management and Curatorial Practice

PROJECT DESCRIPTION: Assists with multiple projects involving Boston Children’s Museum’s artifact collections. These projects include, but are not limited to, inventorying, cataloging, documenting, researching and appropriately housing museum artifacts; taking digital images and scans; preparing and entering catalog records into the PastPerfect database. The intern will divide their time between specific research projects and more general collections work. In consultation with the supervising collections manager, the intern will develop a concrete project intended to complement personal research interests. Interns will be welcome in all areas of the museum’s collection, including American History, Native American, East Asian and Japanese, Dolls & Toys, and Natural History.

LEARNING COMPONENT: The Museum’s Collections Internship provides in depth, hands on training for graduate students interested in gaining curatorial or collection’s management experience in a museum setting. The intern will be introduced to current curatorial practice and related administrative responsibilities including research skills related to the curatorial profession, project planning and implementation skills, and BCM’s collections policies, registration procedures, and collections management practices. In addition, the Intern will have ample opportunity to learn about many operations of the Museum including meeting staff members in Development, Membership, Education, and Exhibits.

SKILLS REQUIRED: Students in Museum Studies, Anthropology, Archaeology, Art History, History and Historic Preservation programs that have had coursework or experience in collections care and management, cataloging, records management and/or historical research methods are encouraged to apply. The candidate should have excellent PC skills with knowledge of Windows applications; be familiar with database systems and digital imaging; have excellent organizational skills; be detail-oriented, responsible and dependable; have working knowledge of office procedures and equipment.

Candidates must be registered students during the term of the internship; Graduate students preferred.

TERM: The intern is required to serve for a minimum of 150 hours distributed over a minimum of 10 weeks. This period of service will correspond with the semester system for the university/institution the intern is attending. Service hours will be organized around the student’s class and/or work schedules. Intern hours must be completed Monday-Friday. A stipend will be awarded to support the work of students selected for this internship.

This internship is only offered during the fall and spring semester.

To Apply: Please send your resume and cover letter as a Word document or PDF attachment to Rachel Farkas, Collections Manager at Farkas@BostonChildrensMuseum.org. Please include “Growdon Intern” in the subject line and reference in the cover letter where you found this posting.