The Special Collections department at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County has two open field study placements for the Fall 2026 semester. Part of the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery at UMBC, Special Collections collects materials of enduring historical and cultural value—housing, preserving, and making accessible materials that are original, rare, unique, fragile, and archival. Our collections and staff support UMBC’s research and educational mission and its dedication to cultural and ethnic diversity, social responsibility, and lifelong learning. UMBC is located in Catonsville, Maryland, just off of I-95, 695, and 195. Parking will be provided. Interested students should submit a current resume and 3 professional or educational references to Beth Saunders, curator and associate director of Special Collections, at bethsaunders@umbc.edu. Application review will begin in July and applications will be accepted until the positions are filled.
Collection Level Records
UMBC Special Collections plans to adopt Archives Space as our new content management system as our collections have outgrown our current system, PastPerfect. For this project, we are performing a mass review and standardization of our records to support this transition. It is our ultimate goal to have a public facing record for each archival collection to significantly improve access to our unprocessed collections.
The metadata standardization intern would exclusively work on ensuring that the required fields to publish a collection level record for unprocessed collections are complete. This position provides the selected student an opportunity to learn and expand on their research skills while aiding our department in increasing the visibility of our collections. This is also a publishing opportunity for students, as they will be listed as a co-author of finding aids, the primary descriptive resource of an archival collection.
Students will be provided various research tools to reference, including our current content management system, PastPerfect, to populate a standardized google form, which will give Special Collections staff access to data that can be quickly published to our Special Collections finding aid site.
Maryland 250 Outreach and Exhibition
UMBC Special Collections will be participating in the statewide Maryland 250 celebration this Fall. Our collections include extensive documentation of Maryland’s history including social activism, media and print culture, documentary and fine art photography, folklife traditions and artistic communities, and more! MD250 activities will include a multi-author blog series highlighting collection items that support research about Maryland communities, artists, and industry; at least two physical exhibits in the Albin O. Kuhn Library & Gallery’s Rotunda display space; an outreach event for the UMBC campus community; and related promotional content on the Special Collections Instagram page (@umbcspecialcollections).
The field study student will contribute to these projects throughout the semester by:
- assisting with photo documentation,
- text and display creation, editing, scheduling, and publication,
- exhibit planning, design, and installation,
- and staffing events.
The student will work directly with a broad range of collection materials and will gain experience writing about historical, primary source items for a general audience. Experience working with WordPress or a similar web publishing platform is preferred. The student will have the opportunity to co-curate at least one exhibit using collection items from Special Collections. The student will also learn general Special Collections procedures for security, handling, digitization, and general use of collection materials. While weekly on-site work at UMBC will be required, this may be structured as a hybrid position.