McMullan Arts Leadership Internship, Research Center - Metadata

The Art Institute of Chicago shares its singular collections with our city and the world. We collect, care for, and interpret works of art across time, cultures, geographies, and identities. We are a place of gathering and learning, committed to fostering an inclusive understanding of human creativity.

Position Summary

The Art Institute of Chicago's Research Center is excited to offer a McMullan Arts Leadership intern position to work with their Ryerson and Burnham Library's Collection Services team on a metadata enhancement project. The Collection Services team is dedicated to improving access to our collections by expanding and enhancing metadata in response to researcher needs. As such, our standards around collection description are in a constant state of evolution.

The RBL collection has been in development for over 120 years, and has over 700,000 items. Metadata enhancement to enact evolutionary improvements requires thoughtful and dedicated effort in such a large and historic collection. This project focuses on the materiality of the item, and enhances bibliographic records based on how an item is constructed, as opposed to what an item is about.

The intern will gain experience with collection handling, controlled vocabularies, and bibliographic description in our LMS, Alma. The intern will apply a genre and form vocabulary consistently to ensure that the bibliographic metadata we are entering becomes practical on the discovery side of our LMS. They will contribute to updating documentation, as needed, further ensuring standardized entry across the cataloging team.

The collection items being enhanced will include both regular stack and special collections, giving the intern a range of collection handling experience. The intern will be encouraged to share interesting collection discoveries through both in person and written modalities.

The intern will join a museum-wide intern cohort and have access to a range of programs to support their development in addition to their placement in the Research Center. Mentorship is provided throughout the experience, and connections with an intern alumni network will be established.

Duration of Position: 32 weeks / September 2026 (start date anytime during the week of September 21-25) through April 2027 (end date anytime during the week of April 26-April 30).

McMullan Arts Leadership Internship Program Goals

The McMullan Arts Leadership internship program is part of a museum-wide effort to provide students the opportunity to gain experience, career awareness, networks, and skills that will position them to thrive as future art museum leaders.

This program specifically aims to support students who encounter economic challenges when considering a career in the arts. Aligned with this goal, we aim to help shape a diverse group of leaders whose actions are informed by a wide range of perspectives, varying career paths, and values inspired by their own lived experiences.

Internship Outcomes

In this position, the intern will have the opportunity to:

* Gain familiarity with vocabularies and best practices related to the area of focus;

* Understanding of the format and purpose of local authorities;

* Learn library management and discovery systems (Alma/Primo);

* Gain collection handling experience across a variety of item types;

* Develop mentor relationships with field practitioners;

* Build peer-to-peer relationships with fellow interns.

Responsibilities

With guidance from the position's mentors, the intern will:

* Research and familiarize themselves with metadata enhancement projects, vocabularies, and best practices related to the area of focus;

* Research Special collection items to provide contextual information in bib records;

* Update existing metadata as directed. Document their work and share statistics regularly;

* Update staff-facing and public-facing documentation to reflect any changes made to the vocabulary during their internship;

* Participate in regular meetings with members of the department and the mentors of this position:
Metadata Librarian and Associate Library Director of Collection Services;

* Attend intern cohort professional development programs and…