Digital Internships Program
The Digital Internships Program is open to graduate students wishing to collaborate with librarians working in digital scholarship on campus. Students are recruited through a competitive process and successful applicants will receive a stipend and hands-on experience working in one of the opportunities listed below.
If you are a current Columbia University graduate student and you are interested in applying for the 26/27 Academic Year, please apply using this form. Please do not follow up to share additional application materials through email unless you are requested to do so.
Digital Music Intern
The finalist for this position will be selected between late August and early September.
The intern works to broaden engagement with tools for digital music, musicology, music notation, and audio, in partnership with the Music & Arts Library Head and aligned with the library's Digital Music Lab. This may include designing and teaching/co-teaching workshops and tutorials, participating in virtual lab hours, creating and updating documentation, and possibly related individual project work. Typical scheduling is 8-10 hours/week.
Pedagogy Intern
The finalists for these two positions will be selected by late September.
The intern will work closely with the Social Sciences and Policy Librarian to develop and deliver a new workshop (or set of workshops) for CU Libraries' Data & Digital Scholarship workshop series. The workshop learning outcomes will focus on computational, technological, and/or digital methodological skills of the intern’s choosing, addressing specific needs within a school, program, discipline, or community. Example topics might include (among many possibilities): computer programming (e.g., R, Python), GIS methods and storymapping, document preparation with LaTeX, qualitative coding using open-source tools like Taguette or QualCoder, working with specific data types (e.g., U.S. Census data, synthetic data), and data storytelling without coding. Through pedagogical training with the Social Sciences and Policy Librarian, recurring meetings with another fellow Pedagogy Intern, and access to additional methodological and disciplinary expertise across the Libraries, the intern will:
- Design teaching materials using evidence-based practices.
- Deliver instruction through hands-on workshop facilitation.
- Refine teaching methods through iterative reflection, assessment, and peer-to-peer learning within a cohort of two Pedagogy Interns.
- Identify and pursue appropriate communication or repository channels (such as Academic Commons) to share lesson plans and/or design insights.
Digital Humanities Center Intern
This position has been filled for the 2026-2027 academic year.
The digital intern assigned to the Digital Humanities Center will work to broaden engagement with tools for digital video editing and script writing. Working in partnership with the Digital Humanities Center and the Librarian for Film Studies & Performing Arts, the primary responsibilities focus on the design and teaching of in-person and virtual workshops, consultations, and tutorials on a suite of video editing and script writing softwares. The intern will create and update instructional documentation. Typical scheduling is 5-10 hours/week.
Digital Publishing Intern
This position has been filled for the 2026-2027 academic year.
The Digital Publishing Intern works closely with the Open Scholarship Services team to support partners in the Journal Publishing Program.
About the program:
Columbia Libraries supports the creation, discovery, and dissemination of open-access research by providing technical publishing support and covering hosting and related costs for over 30 scholarly journals. We collaborate with Columbia-affiliated faculty and students who produce and curate scholarly content focused on a range of topics. We support editors in learning about the traditional scholarly publishing ecosystem and give them support to push its boundaries and leverage its existing infrastructure and strengths.
During the 2026-2027 year, the Digital Publishing Intern will assist with a project to add greater visibility and accessibility to legacy journal partner content. This project involves using Python, bibliographic metadata in various formats (csv, json, xml), and experimentation with and documentation of experimental workflows that leverage CUIT-provided AI tools.
Program Objectives
- To foster a community of scholars interested in emerging forms and methods of research and scholarship.
- To expose the next generation of faculty and researchers to rich and innovative digital tools, methods and environments that will be useful in their future work and will improve their competitiveness in the academic marketplace.
- To create an opportunity for graduate students to develop useful skills and practices to be shared with library staff and other users, and through this interaction drive the creation of innovative research- and teaching-support models within the library.
- To present alternative career paths for those holding advanced degrees, specifically as professional-level collaborators in digital scholarship based within and outside of academic departments.
- To engage students with the everyday professional practices of librarians in digital scholarship and provide experience with the operations of academic libraries, especially as they contribute to the educational goals of universities and impact teaching, learning, and research.
- To harness student expertise in technology and applied science to help the broader Columbia community to build skills around topics such as Python, R, publishing and podcasting technologies, and music technologies.
Mentoring
Each participant will be assigned to a mentor who will train the student and prepare a work plan for the project. The Libraries is committed to fostering a work environment where interns are respected and feel free to ask questions and make suggestions.
The program is open to all Columbia University graduate students. Participants must be enrolled as a student for the full academic year, from September through May.
Participants are expected to make regular contributions to the Digital Internship blog.
Interns will be paid $20.00 an hour and will work five to ten hours a week (or the semester equivalent thereof) during the academic year.
Intern supervisors may collectively be reached at digital-internships@library.columbia.edu for questions that are specific to individual positions. Please do not contact this email address to provide additional application materials.