Finding a quiet place to read or study can be a challenge in New York City – especially if your apartment is the size of a walk-in closet and your roommates derive satisfaction from invading your personal space. This is undoubtedly one of the reasons why so many New Yorkers seek refuge in the city’s many public library branches. Aside from students, scholars and frugal intellectuals, the New York library system is also a haven for jobseekers that can access a slew of free computers to send out resumes and research jobs. This is particularly noteworthy considering that many of today’s unemployed don’t have the money to afford a personal computer. What makes the New York Public Library (NYPL) particularly unique is its rich history and sheer volume of information. Founded at the end of the 19th century, NYPL has grown to represent over 80 branches in Manhattan, The Bronx and Staten Island. Currently, the collections at NYPL rival those at the British Library, the Library of Congress and the Bibliotheque nationale de France. NYPL prides itself “in being historically a privately managed, non-profit corporation with both public and private financing in a century-old, still evolving public-private partnership.”
Like any institution that predominantly relies on private funding, NYPL has witnessed its share of financial woes including a surge of layoffs, hour reductions and budget cuts. While entry-level jobs are scarce, there are still a couple of great internships at the organization. Those include Summer Intern in the Registrar’s Office and Public Relations Intern. Both internships are unpaid but provide the prospective intern with useful industry experience. For example, the PR Intern will network with the media, work on PR strategy, and appear at Press events. The Registrar’s intern, on the other hand, is offered to an NYU Museum Studies student who, among various administrative tasks, will “process incoming domestic and foreign loans (art objects, books, manuscripts) for temporary exhibitions at NYPL,” and will learn about the ins and outs of managing the library’s extensive art loan collection. Both positions require strong time-management and computer skills but should be accessible to any humanities major (or recent grad) interested in library work. The NYPL does a good job keeping its careers site updated with new positions, so you may want to stay on the lookout for other internship postings. So, next time you visit the library to check out a book, make sure you drop off a resume too.
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Tags: administrative, communications, Internships, library, New York, non-profit, public relations, unpaid
And just to add, if you’ve got digital production skills (everything from a/v production to design to coding), we’ve got internships available in the Library’s new Digital Experience group. Please look on nypl.org for more information…