National Archives and Records Administration (also includes work with the Office of Presidential Libraries)

www.archives.gov

Organization Overview:
The National Archives is a public trust on which our democracy depends. We enable people to inspect for themselves the record of what government has done. We enable officials and agencies to review their actions and help citizens hold them accountable. We ensure continuing access to essential evidence that documents:

• the rights of American citizens
  
• the actions of federal officials
  
• the national experience

Projects:

Nancy Jacobson worked with NARA staff to identify concerns and issues involved in declassifing special media (audio tape, video tape, film, microfilm, microfiche, etc.). She met and interviewed several key officials in various NARA divisions on special media that they have and handle, and how classification and declassification orders and mandates impact their current and future duties. At the end of the week, Nancy produced a report for NARA staff with her observations, findings and recommendations.

Tammy Pettinato worked in the Office of Presidential Libraries. She performed internet sources to create a timeline of important historical events since President Hoover. Tammy then organized these events into themes for possible future exhibits in multiple presidential libraries. Lastly, she reviewed relevant Presidential papers for significant statements about the historical events for use in these exhibits.

Allison Zaleski performed research in two areas: NARA materials involved in litigation and technological solutions to e-discovery issues. As part of the litigation projects, she helped to analyze a collection of materials involved in litigation. Allison also worked with her mentors on current NARA cases, and had the opportunity to tour several facilities, including the Nixon Presidential Materials, the Old Executive Buiolding and the exhibits at the downtown NARA location.

What Students Had to Say:

" I loved everything about my assignment. The people were great and the work was great."

" The willingness of the members of the organization to treat me as a professional consultant, rather than just a student intern (although everyone I interviewed knew that I was an "intern from the University of Michigan") [was wonderful]. The experience helped me to realize that I prefer the records management aspect of ARM, and that it is not only an area where I excell, but is something that I enjoy a great deal."

"My project validated my career plans. I hope to eventually work in information law and I was able to spend a week with people who have a career in information law."

" I got to sit in on an interview of the [NARA] ISOO director by Newsweek magazine - and that was just on my first day! It was a great start and foreshadowed the overall great experience."

" I very much enjoyed meeting and talking with the people in the office about what they do on a day-to-day basis, what backgrounds they had before entering NARA, etc."

"After this trip, I feel more committed to my chose career of law librarianship, but whereas before I had assumed I would work in an academic law library, I definitely feel more open to working for the federal government now."

Original Projects: jump to Office of Presidential Libraries info and projects

1) The National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) Archival Research Catalog (ARC) staff seeks two interns to assist with research pertaining to the ARC system.

a. One student will learn about NARA’s authority files for ARC by working with our authority staff researching person name headings from the Chaplains 201 (personnel) files stored in NWCTM. The completed research will be used for new name headings for ARC and system contributions. The intern will be in the reading room 95% of the time and will work from a laptop.

b. The second intern will learn about the ARC system and standards by working with our review staff, completing an online training course, discussing our description standards and reviewing descriptions that arrive during the week of their stay.

These positions are located at the National Archives state-of-the-art headquarters building in College Park, MD, adjacent to the University of Maryland campus.

2) The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) Policy and Planning Staff (NPOL), seeks an intern to assist with preparing a report for the Archivist on audit resolution, learn the process for developing internal NARA guidance and issuing notices to staff, and shadow several employees with varying job responsibilities. 

Among the many activities it manages, NPOL develops and issues policy, oversees NARA's management controls and coordinates audit resolution, coordinates the development and implementation of NARA's Strategic Plan and compliance with the Government Performance and Results Act, directs NARA's customer satisfaction program, and plans, coordinates, and develops requirements and data standards for NARA records lifecycle and public access systems.

The internship is located at the National Archives state-of-the-art headquarters building in College Park, MD, adjacent to the University of Maryland campus.

3) The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) seeks an intern to assist the Office of the Federal Register in scanning, indexing, and organizing historical files related to negotiated settlements and/or agreements made to address special needs of agencies publishing in the Federal Register. 

The Office of the Federal Register is responsible for publishing rules and proposed rules issued by Federal agencies for inclusion in the U.S. Code of Federal Regulations.  This project would provide a unique opportunity to gain significant knowledge of the requirements for publication in the Federal Register as well as a unique look at how the publications have evolved through the process of negotiating agreements in order to meet the unique needs of various agencies while maintaining the integrity of the Federal Register.

The internship is located at the Federal Register building in downtown Washington, DC.

4) The National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) Office of Regional Records Services seeks an intern to assist in developing a new Affiliated Archives Website.  Affiliated archives are non-National Archives institutions that hold--by formal, written agreement with NARA--records that are part of the accessioned holdings of the National Archives of the United States. The current affiliated archives are located at the U.S. Military Academy Archives, West Point, NY; William W. Jeffries Memorial Archives, U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD; Oklahoma Historical Society, Oklahoma City, OK; State Records Center and Archives, Santa Fe, NM; Yellowstone National Park Archives, WY; and the Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.

The purpose of the new Affiliate Archives Website is to provide a central source of information about the affiliated archives program and the agencies and organizations that belong to it.  The intern in this position will assist in refining the text and content for the site, designing and encoding the site, obtaining permissions from affiliated archives to link to their respective websites, and preparing the site for mounting on the NARA server.

This position is located at the National Archives state-of-the-art headquarters building in College Park, MD, adjacent to the University of Maryland campus.

5) The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) is seeking interns to assist in Research & Development activities related to electronic records.  To meet the challenge of preserving authentic and accessible electronic records, NARA is building an Electronic Records Archives, or ERA.  Research supports many of ERA's initiatives by developing tools and technologies for examining issues of preserving electronic records. NARA has partnered with numerous world class research institutions, such as Federal agencies, state governments, non profit organizations, foreign governments, and private businesses.  These research collaborations provide an environment for testing and evaluating new technologies as they emerge.

The ERA Program welcomes students to assist in the testing of important tools such as the Research Prototype Persistent Archives - also known as NARA's ERA "Data Grid" - or another tool called the Producer Archive Workflow Network (PAWN).  These two archival tools allow NARA to examine and mitigate technology risks surrounding the transfer, preservation, and access of permanently valuable electronic records.

In addition, ERA is interested in having a student with Web experience help us update our website.

These internships are located at the National Archives state-of-the-art headquarters building in College Park, MD, adjacent to the University of Maryland campus.

6) The Information Security Oversight Office (ISOO) seeks an intern to assist in identifying potential impediments to the declassification of “special media”.  ISOO is responsible for developing security classification policies for classifying, declassifying, and safeguarding national security information generated in Government and industry, and for evaluating the effectiveness of the security classification programs established by Government and industry to protect information vital to national security interests.  ISOO is an administrative component of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), but receives its policy and program guidance from the National Security Council (NSC).

The intern in this position would assist ISOO in identifying potential impediments to the declassification of special media, i.e., microforms, motion pictures, audiotapes, videotapes, and comparable media that make a review for possible declassification more difficult and/or costly (in certain situations – obsolescence of hardware or software – this may include electronic records).  The Executive branch of the U.S. Government hast o take actions on such records between now and 2011, and ISOO will soon begin an effort to focus on this issue.  The intern would assist ISOO in defining the problem, identifying potential impediments, and identifying some ways to mitigate those impediments.

This position is located at the National Archives building at 700 Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown Washington, DC.

7) The National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) Modern Records Program is seeking an intern to assist in the development of professional training curriculum in advanced topics on managing electronic records.  The student will report to NARA’s National Training Officer and the Senior Records Analyst who are heading a team of NARA staff to develop content for this two-day professional development course. The curriculum development process includes the integration of current policies and guidance on managing electronic records issued by NARA.  Students would likely be involved in the following types of activities: reviewing and analyzing policy or regulatory material suitable for curriculum content; editing curriculum content material; synthesizing information regarding emerging electronic records tools and formats for integration into curriculum content; participating in team meeting; researching additional content materials as needed.

The intern will be involved in activities at both of NARA’s locations in the Washington, DC area – the National Archives building at 700 Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown Washington, DC, and our state-of-the-art headquarters building in College Park, MD, adjacent to the University of Maryland campus.

8) The National Archives and Records Administration’s (NARA) Office of General Counsel is seeking one or more interns to assist with the following projects:

1. Assisting in a review of files on a series of electronic media, including backup tapes, for the purpose of inventorying and getting “intellectual control” of existing NARA collections that have been subject to past litigation.
2. Researching various information retrieval topics that would be useful in connection with NARA’s work assisting the Sedona Conference on the subject of search and retrieval issues arising in litigation involving e-discovery.  The Sedona Conference is a research and education institute that focuses on legal and policy issues related to antitrust law, complex litigation, and intellectual property rights.

The position(s) is located at the National Archives state-of-the-art headquarters facility in College Park, MD, adjacent to the University of Maryland campus.

 9) The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) seeks an intern to assist the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) in researching and organizing information related to state and local government grants.  NHPRC is a grant-making organization that supports a wide range of activities to preserve, publish, and encourage the use of documentary sources, created in every medium ranging from quill pen to computer, relating to the history of the United States.

The intern would use the NHPRC Access grants database to generate a list of grants to state and local government archives and to state historical records advisory boards.  This list would then be used to identify products resulting from these grants.  The intern would compile a list of products produced by these projects, and working backwards from the most recent products review products and select for further description those products that seemed likely to have: 1) had a wider impact on other archival institutions or archival practice; 2) for which a wider applicability of the product; was claimed by the applicant or 3) for which the applicant claimed a major impact on their own program.  The intern will also be asked to propose a methodology for ongoing identification of projects by type of project or applicant.

Project would be supervised by the NHPRC Director for State Programs and would provide information to be incorporated on the NHPRC Web site.  The internship is located at the National Archives building at 700 Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown Washington, DC.

10) The National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) seeks an intern to assist in preparations for NARA’s upcoming genealogy fair and enhanced description program.  The intern will help develop reference reports directing researchers to textual and published government documents pertaining to residents of the District of Columbia.  In this fashion the intern will have an opportunity to learn more about agency annual reports and the relationship between records a Federal agency creates and how it reports its activities to Congress.  The intern will work with genealogy specialists and staff of the Archives I Research Support Branch (NWCC1) and the Archives Library Information Center (ALIC).

The internship is located at the National Archives building at 700 Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown Washington, DC.

National Archives and Records Administration, Office of Presidential Libraries
www.archives.gov/presidential-libraries

Organization Overview:
All projects are in support of the National Archives’ Office of Presidential Libraries, which oversees the nation’s eleven Presidential Libraries and Museums located throughout the country.   These archives and museums bring together in one place the documents and artifacts of a President and his Administration and presents them to the public for study and discussion without regard for political considerations or affiliations.   Presidential Libraries and Museums offer educational and outreach programs to students of all ages and the public in general.

Projects:

1)Review of Presidential Speeches:
This project offers a student the opportunity to review Presidential papers for significant statements about historical events, key decisions in history, and the democracy of our country.   This project will involve research through a variety of sources, including the Internet, and writing and analysis of the materials reviewed.

2) Presidential Dates in History:
This project involves researching the 20th century Presidential milestones to develop a database of key anniversaries and events.   This data will be used to populate a web-based calendar and serve as the primary source of information for long-range public program and exhibit planning.   This project involves research and writing and analyses of key historical events.

3) Podcasting Pilot  
This project is in support of the Presidential Libraries’ efforts to podcast symposia, lecture series, and Presidential interviews to the general public.   In addition, we are in the design stage of developing podcasts of museum exhibit interpretation to our museum visitors.   This project involves research on podcasting technology and development of project proposals.