Summer is for Internships

As in past years, this summer a number of departments will have the benefit of talented young interns—including several funded by prestigious programs such as the highly competitive International Fine Print Dealers Association Foundation Internship. Join staff members in welcoming Alison Van Denend, Mikaela Maria, Jo Dutilloy, Laura Michel, Paul Bierman, and Giles Holbrow, and welcoming back Emma Ricciardi.

In 2014, the International Fine Print Dealers Association (IFPDA) Foundation will fund a curatorial internship for Alison Van Denend. Alison holds a BA in Art History and French from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI, and expects to receive an MA in Art History with a Certificate in Curatorial Studies from Rutgers this May. She has previously worked as a curatorial intern at the New-York Historical Society, the Montclair Art Museum, and the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Alison will serve as the Curatorial Assistant to the Print Department, helping with accessioning, arrangement, and description of items and collections. She will also assist with reference and public outreach related to the print collections and will contribute posts to the Library Company’s blog and to our other social media outlets about her experience working with the print collections.

In coordination with the Visual Culture Program (VCP at LCP) and the Program in African American History, Mikaela Maria, a Master’s of Public History student at Rutgers will be creating an interactive website showcasing our rare antebellum friendship albums compiled by Amy Matilda Cassey and sisters Martina and Mary Anne Dickerson. Jo Dutilloy, a rising sophomore at Bryn Mawr College, will be joining us through the Tri-Co Digital Humanities Initiative to work on another aspect of this project. She will be creating or expanding Wikipedia entries for the Cassey album contributors as well as mapping contributors’ residences and organizational affiliations, making it possible to include a geospatial component. Artifacts of African American women active in the arts, literary, and antislavery communities, the albums are the focus of a digital humanities initiative in the early stages of development in collaboration with professors and students at Rochester Institute of Technology, Swarthmore College, Bryn Mawr College, and Rutgers University. The beta site will include transcriptions of album essays, annotations, and a timeline.

Laura Michel, soon to become a PhD candidate in US History at the University of Maryland at College Park, will be working independently with Librarian Jim Green on a project to identify rare 18th-century books in the Union Library Company of Hatboro (Pa.) for possible deposit at the Library Company.

Swarthmore College rising senior Paul Bierman will intern in the Development Department for ten weeks beginning June 23. Drawn to the opportunity to learn from Swarthmore alumna Molly Roth about possibilities for non-academic applications of training in Anthropology, Paul has funding from the College to support his time as an intern. He will help research the biographies of historic shareholders, assist with a database migration, and provide logistical support for special events.

Giles Holbrow, an undergraduate student in Rochester Institute of Technology’s Imaging and Photographic Technology department, will be assisting the Library Company with digital imaging as well as other digital projects including a project to make selections from Peter Collinson’s copy of a rare 1739 History of London accessible online.

Finally, Emma Ricciardi, a graduate student of Library Information and Science at Rutgers, is returning for her second summer as the Reading Room Assistant. Not actually an intern but rather a temporary staff member, she will be assisting with reader services as well working on special projects including cataloging modern reference books and adding material to the gay@lcp blog accompanying our “That’s So Gay” exhibition.