In 2020, Dr. Pamela Thomas, Bibliographic Grant Manager of the Cataloging Maintenance Center (CMC), determined that it would be beneficial to establish an unpaid internship program between the CMC and MLIS students. Along with Jill Trevino, IHLS’s Human Resources Director, an unpaid internship contract with an exit interview document was created. Pam created a CMC student intern job description and shared it with the University of Illinois's iSchool and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro's (UNCG) master’s program in Library and Information Science.

On May 17, 2021, Sarah Schwartz from the University of Illinois iSchool became the first unpaid intern with the CMC. Soon after, Katie Powell from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro followed, starting on July 1, 2021.

Since then, the CMC has worked with 17 interns from the University of Iowa, the University of Illinois, the University of Denver, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and the University of Iowa, often hosting two interns each semester. 

You are probably wondering how students from out-of-state colleges can fulfill an internship in Illinois. Virtually, of course! CMC interns can work on a variety of projects remotely, including cataloging (sending them images and descriptions of physical items sent to the CMC), claiming items sent to the CMC cataloging request form, database cleanup, transcribing metadata collections, cataloging digitized collections, finding matching records in library databases or OCLC, enhancing/updating OCLC records to RDA guidelines, and preparing and presenting Online with the CMC webinars. Interns also job-shadow with the CMC staff. Since they are interns, their work is either reviewed by Pam or another CMC staff member. 

Our current interns are Chris Deitner and Meredith Davis, who are both MLIS students at UNCG.
If you are a current MLS student and interested in becoming an unpaid intern, please contact Dr. Pamela Thomas at pthomas@illinoisheartland.org.