Internships

Electronic Records/Web Archiving Internship

The Center seeks an intern to assist the Electronic Records Specialists with its biennial Congressional web archive. At the conclusion of each Congress, the Center partners with the Internet Archive to create an archived version of U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives websites. At the conclusion of the 114th Congress in 2016, the Center completed its sixth capture of Congressional websites. The 114th Congress archiving tasks preserved over 152 million URLs (i.e. unique pages) totaling over 45 terabytes of uncompressed web data. The Congressional Web Archive holdings now total 33% of the Center’s electronic records holdings. Beginning with the 109th Congress, archived websites are now accessible online.

In addition to web archiving activities, the intern will gain experience ingesting congressional records for preservation in our Congressional Records Instance (CRI) of NARA's Electronic Records Archive (ERA) and assisting the Electronic Records Specialists in various other duties. 

Interested students at any educational level may apply for the electronic records/web archiving internship. Applicants must demonstrate knowledge in the following areas: strong organization and communication skills; attention to detail; ability to work both independently and cooperatively in a team environment to achieve goals; experience and proficiency with automated desktop software (e.g. Excel) to create and modify lists of URLs; and familiarity with websites and web browser functionality.

Ideally the candidate would be able to commit to 16 hours a week from June - December. For information on how to apply, please visit How to apply for an internship with the Center for Legislative Archives.

Archival Internships

Archival interns receive training from the Center's archivists on a variety of projects, including:

• Description of archival records
   
• Reference requests from researchers
   
• Creation and digitization of finding aids

Archival interns often come to the Center to gain hands on experience during their graduate studies in Archives and Library Science programs. However, all students with an interest in this field are encourages to submit an application. For information on how to apply, please visit How to apply for an internship with the Center for Legislative Archives.

Public Outreach Internships

Public outreach interns at the Center for Legislative Archives work on a variety of projects along with outreach staff that develop research and writing skills, expand students' understanding of history and government, and provide opportunities to explore a variety of career paths.

Public outreach intern assignments could include:

• Lesson plans and curricular materials based on original House and Senate documents
   
• Research for posts on the Center's tumblr and other social media outlets
   
• Research for online featured documents
   
• Archival description of congressional records
   
• General research in the records of Congress to support outreach programs

Intern assignments on these project include: historical research, research on institutional changes and developments in government, policy research, writing research memos, creating educational materials, or creating charts, graphs and timelines.

Interested students at any educational level may apply for a public outreach internship. Applicants with strong writing skills and an interest in history, political science, legislative politics, public policy, education, public history or communication are welcome. For information on how to apply, please visit How to apply for an internship with the Center for Legislative Archives.