Every year the Getty offers around thirty paid internships for current or recent graduate students across many of our programs and departments. Applications for the 2020–2021 season are now open. The seven positions below offer the chance to do leading edge work in some of the foundational areas of museum technology, and with some of the sector’s best people. 🙂

To graduate students, I hope you’ll consider applying. And to graduate program professors, I hope you’ll consider passing these on to your students and colleagues. Full information on the internships and application process can be found at https://www.getty.edu/foundation/initiatives/current/gradinterns/. Application deadline is November 1.

2020–21 Getty Graduate Internships

Digital and Print Publications (Getty Publications)

As the publisher serving all Getty programs, Getty Publications produces 30-35 print titles per year and an increasing number of web-based open access publications. This internship will provide in-depth experience in the creation, distribution, and marketing of digital publications as well as grounding in the traditional editorial functions involved in art publishing. Our intern will work closely with the Digital Publications Manager and editorial staff and will collaborate with colleagues across the Getty Trust, including the Museum, Conservation Institute, and Research Institute. Typical projects range from exhibition and collection catalogues to scholarly books on art conservation and history; duties include the coordination of assets and metadata, copyediting and manuscript preparation, project coordination, image rights clearances, and user testing. The position also provides exposure to trends in the museum and publishing technology fields, including user-centered design, the digital humanities, and open source software development. Candidates should be organized, detail-oriented, and have strong written and verbal communication skills.

Collection Management Systems (Getty Digital)

The intern in Collection Management Systems will gain intensive experience with preserving the Getty’s unique collections and assets in digital format, which include archives of artists, galleries and art historians and audio/video artworks and documentation as well as websites, institutional born-digital records, and research data. The intern’s primary responsibilities will likely include troubleshooting and testing workflows for getting content of all types into a managed system, and researching future options for video reformatting, with other projects assigned according to the intern’s particular skills and interests. Specific tasks may include developing preservation plans for file characterization, migration and normalization, assessing technical metadata for digital assets, and participating in the drafting of policies and procedures related to digital preservation.

Cultural Heritage Data Management (Getty Digital)

The intern will gain a thorough knowledge of the institution’s work by creating, extracting, transforming, enhancing and publishing our knowledge to enable research and the development of end-user applications. The primary responsibilities are to assist with the automation of processing content into Linked Open Data, to assist the community in the transformation of their data in the same way, knowledge extraction from textual content such as materials or provenance statements, reconciliation of names, and integration of the results into collection management systems including Arches, ArchivesSpace, or TMS. Candidates must have at least rudimentary understanding of the Python programming language or the willingness to transfer existing knowledge. Learning opportunities include data engineering, linked open data, machine learning, natural language processing, cultural heritage data management. Networking opportunities include working with partner museums around the world, engaging with systems vendors, and participating with international data standards.

Collection Information & Access (Getty Museum)

MUST <3 DATA. The Collection Information & Access (CI&A) department aims to expand access to and enhance understanding of the Museum’s art collection by managing, safeguarding and disseminating documentary, interpretive, and administrative information about the Museum’s art collection and its care. This internship will introduce the intern to all aspects of the collection data workflow–from inception as it enters our systems to public presentations–and provide opportunities for hands-on experience collaborating on projects with our team and colleagues around the Getty. Areas of work may include: data analysis and reconciliation; data integrity management; data transformation; administration/support of The Museum System (TMS), our collection management software; data visualization and statistical reporting. Projects will be assigned to complement the intern’s particular skills and interests. Good communication skills, attention to detail, and a curious nature are a plus.

Project for the Study of Collecting and Provenance (Getty Research Institute)

The intern will research, create, and edit information for inclusion in the Getty Provenance Index® and may assist in planning workshops and conferences related to current projects. This year’s intern will also be involved in the transformation of the current databases into Linked Open Data, and contribute to the overhaul of department’s online presence. The internship provides an opportunity to work within several periods of art history, and a variety of primary source material as well as digital collections. Working with the PSCP, the intern will gain experience in provenance research, database curation, and data analysis for the cultural heritage and digital humanities fields.

Getty Vocabulary Program (Getty Research Institute)

The Getty Vocabularies are at the core of information systems and the exchange of knowledge about art for the cultural heritage community. The graduate intern will have an opportunity to contribute to this essential resource and learn the processes governing their production and publication. The intern’s responsibilities and learning opportunities will include both editorial and technical tasks related to the creation of the Art & Architecture Thesaurus ® (AAT), the Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), the Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names ® (TGN), the Cultural Objects Name Authority® (CONA), and the Getty Iconography Authority ™ (IA). Activities will include researching terminology, biographical data, geographic data, information on works of art and architecture, and processing contributions using SQL and OpenRefine. Duties include evaluating, constructing, revising, and expanding new and existing terminology and work records for art and architecture, processing contributions from internal and external projects. The intern should arrive with the requisite general knowledge and experience; in the Vocabulary Program, the intern will receive training in creating authority records, processing data sets, and cataloging and indexing works of art and architecture. In addition, the intern will receive insight into how vocabularies and associated data are used in retrieval and linked broadly in the outside world, including as Linked Open Data (LOD).

Web and New Media (Getty Research Institute)

The Getty Research Institute’s Web and New Media department intern will work closely with our team to learn and participate in the process of digital content development, from initial ideation to project launch, which includes conceptual planning and content strategy; project management; storytelling and learning to write and adapt content in a voice and tone that is customized for various audiences and platforms; UX design and testing; and editing web pages according to house style within a content management system. The ideal intern is currently pursuing or has recently completed a graduate-level degree in journalism, art history, or communications and is passionate about creatively communicating complex ideas to multiple audiences. He or she should also be an excellent writer and an independent self-starter who will be able to hit the ground running to work on individual projects and collaborative cross-departmental initiatives.