A cartoon in our archives showing Noreen Murray as a schoolgirl being reprimanded for making clones of herself in the laboratory (a reference to Noreen’s work cloning DNA)
University of Edinburgh Library and Collections has a huge number of image collections with a wide range of art, science, portraits, people, cartoons and photographs. We would like to open up some of these images to make them more discoverable and usable as images of role models, women in science, women in medicine, diverse groups and positive representations.
Job Purpose:
Your project will be to search our collections for striking, inspirational and engaging images and work with curators to describe, digitise, publish and share them in a way which makes them easy to find and reuse. Your work will be supervised by our collection curators and archivists who will help you to describe and interpret what you find.
This internship coincides with an exciting time for Information Services Group as we celebrate the diversity of our collections. Your work will be the starting point for future projects and give us vital information to help us plan new ways of working. This is an exciting opportunity to work with some of the UK’s most interesting collections and your work will have immediate and visible impact.
Working Hours:
Working hours are 6 hours per week. Flexible conditions (working pattern to be negotiated with the successful applicant).
Main Responsibilities:
•You will work closely with our archivists and curators to identify where in our collections there may be images (particularly of women and women scientists) which can be found, shared and re-used.
•You will take high quality scans and photographs of the images, create descriptive metadata, store files in line with agreed workflows
and regularly add the images with their stories to a library-hosted blog.
•You will work with our other interns to ensure that the images you find are quickly used.
•You will work under supervision, but on your own initiative to use your investigative, research and search skills to discover images with
stories and visual impact.
•Throughout the term of the internship you will find and share a steady stream of content that can be easily re-used in presentations and displays around the university.
•You will gain new skill in researching collections, understanding metadata, intellectual property rights and copyright, as well as using digital scanners and digital images.
•You will work as part of a large team and independently, managing your own work projects and time, reporting on progress, publishing your findings and attendingmeetings and presentations.
•You will gain a unique insight into the library andcollections and equality and diversity issues in that context.
•You will challenge us with new ideas and summarise these in an end-of-project report.
Person Specification:
Essential:
•A current PhD University of Edinburgh student (this post is designated for the purposes of student employment, therefore you must be a matriculated student for the duration of your employment).
•A background in a relevant subject area such as gender studies, art, sociology, information studies, literature, journalism, photography, science, engineering, education, humanities, library studies, archiving, curation, human resources, management or any other relevant discipline.
•You will have a keen eye for detail, be patient and accurate and understand the
importance, beauty and power of metadata.
•Experience of searching, researching and finding things.
•Initiative and judgment to resolve many day-to-day problems independently.
•An enquiring mind and an eye for detail.
•Strong written and oral presentation skills.
•Good IT skills for using social media, working with data and targeted communications.
•Ability to set, meet, manage and monitor progress against targets.
•An engaging interpersonal style and experience of successfully persuading and influencing colleagues.
•Ability to handle irreplaceable documents and objects with care.
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Desirable:
•Understanding of relevant equality and diversity themes as they relate to equality in theworkplace and the importance of visible role models and positive representations.
•Experience of researching a topic in detail.
•An understanding of how cultural heritage collections can support learning and research at universities.
•This internship would suit someone with a background in equality or gender studies,change management or human resources or someone with a particular interest inpolicies and practicalities of gender issues in library, technology or STEM workplaces.
