Hello! I’m Emma, and I’m the trainee in Bodleian Digital Library Systems and Services. I’m from Washington State in the U.S., and I did my B.A. in literature at Middlebury College. During my degree I worked in our interlibrary loan department and studied for a year at Oxford, and after graduating I spent a year working in electronic reserves and copyright processing for a library in California.
My position is new this year, so it’s a bit undefined, but basically I’m working with the digitization department at BDLSS. We’re doing a partnership with the Vatican Library to digitize millions of objects starting this year, and we’ll be working on making these easily accessible to the public. A lot of what I’ll be doing once we get started is processing the images and assigning metadata (page numbers, content labels, etc.), but so far I’ve been working a bit on the project website and reading a LOT about metadata and digitization standards. Today I learned how to retrieve images from the archive. The images we’re using are very high quality, so they take up a lot of space, and they’re actually stored on tapes that get physically fetched by a robot every time we need to copy something from the archive. This happens much more quickly than I would have expected–it only takes a few minutes.
The people I’m working with are a lot more tech-savvy than I am, so I’m looking forward to learning more about the software and languages we’ll be using. I’m also excited to be dealing with such beautiful images, and to be involved in the effort to make them more accessible.
Emma, I’m so jealous of the work you are doing! I am currently trying to figure out how to apply from the U.S. to train in England (preferably Oxford) for my internship. Do you have any advice or clues as to what I need to do or look for?
Hi Kelsey. That’s a tough question. I’m very lucky in that I am a British citizen, so I was able to apply more or less competitively for jobs in the U.K. I’m not sure what your situation is, but if you’re a U.S. citizen only, I think it might be difficult for you to get a trainee position here, because it ‘s hard to get visa sponsorship for a relatively unskilled position. It might make sense to get some work experience in the U.S. and then apply to library school in the U.K., as you would be able to work part-time during your degree and possibly get a foot in the door that way. If you let me know more about what you’re trying to do, I can try to help a bit more by email.
Ohhhh, I guess I read more into the part that said you’re from the U.S. but you must have moved over there a while ago and gained citizenship? I’m currently getting my American Masters in Library Science, so I was unsure if I need to enroll back in school in the U.K., since I’m sure there are different qualifications needed. I’ve been working at my library for 5 years, but I’m not sure that will be enough to get into a training program at such a prestigious library…I would certainly love to try though! I would love if you could give me any more advice via email…I don’t know if you get that information when I fill out the form, but it’s kelskauff@gmail.com
Thank you so much!