Data Literacy & User Engagement Intern, Boston Open Data Team, Boston, MA
Posted August 18, 2016
This internship is ideal for a candidate with the following characteristics: students pursuing a Masters in Library & Information Science with strong digital literacy and communication skills. Preference will be granted to candidates with marketing experience and/or experience using social media platforms such as Medium, Reddit, Twitter, and Mailchimp. Students with a demonstrated interest in information literacy, open data, analytics, graphic design, and/or visualization are strongly encouraged to participate.
Important note: Candidates selected to participate in this internship will be provided a stipend.
Fall 2016 dates preferred: September 2016 to December 2016
Location of internship: Boston Public Library with occasional travel within the City as needed
Description of project: In 2015, the Knight Foundation awarded a grant to the City of Boston and the Boston Public Library to create the City’s first data catalog and develop programming to open up this resource for all to use.
As an intern, you will be working with the Data Literacy Librarian to actively build a robust and proactive communication and data literacy program that interacts with the public on a regular basis and consistently finds novel ways to reach new audiences.
Specific experiences that this internship will provide:
- Create and teach curriculum around Boston’s open data, a new information resource, that best meets the needs of the citizens of Boston
- Identify content for, and publish stories around open datasets. (Must be comfortable conducting interviews with various stakeholders and chronicling public events)
- Work with the Data Literacy Librarians and BPL Librarians to cocreate classes and learning materials for users
- Liaise with the Department of Innovation and Technology and BPL Communications Teams to coordinate scheduling, promotion, and outreach activities for the Boston Open Data Project
- Help plan public events such as Citywide open data summits, hackathons, focus groups, usability studies and informal instructional sessions
- If desired, ability to gain experience alongside the Data Librarian on metadata creation, curation, and enhancement projects
Interns will have the opportunity to help shape the Boston Open Data Project’s strategy for engaging with its user communities and understand in practice how marketing plays a critical role in the sustainability and longevity of projects that are new, experimental, and innovative.
If you are interested in this internship please submit a cover letter and resume to Jacqueline Ford @ [email protected]