Ask a Librarian Internship Program
Columbia University Libraries welcomes applications for the part-time, remote Ask A Librarian Internship in the Fall 2025 and Spring 2026 semesters. The Ask A Librarian Internship provides currently enrolled Library & Information Science students with hands-on experience in academic librarianship. Interns will receive training and support from a librarian supervisor in order to assist users through the Ask A Librarian chat reference service. Additionally, interns will work in collaboration with their supervisor to conduct a project, such as preparing and delivering a workshop session, creating a research guide, or designing library outreach initiatives.
The Ask A Librarian Internship Program seeks to provide meaningful working experiences that relate to the goals and interests of the intern. BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) Library & Information Science students are highly encouraged to apply.
Availability
Applications will be accepted from June 26th to July 16th, 2025. Applications received before or after this time will not be considered.
Fall 2025: Three positions will be available for the Fall 2025 semester. Interns are anticipated to start August 25th, 2025, with an expected end date of December 19th, 2025, for a period of approximately four months total.
Spring 2026: Three positions will be available for the Spring 2026 semester, which we are also recruiting for at this time. Interns are anticipated to start January 12th, 2026, with an expected end date of May 15th, 2026.
Location
The internship will be conducted remotely. Interns residing in the New York City area will have the option to conduct project work at Columbia University’s Morningside Campus if desired.
Pay Rate
$25/hour
Schedule
The schedule is an average time commitment of 14 hours per week, but can vary week to week. It includes nine hours of chat reference staffing during evenings and/or weekends, and up to five hours of working on a project. Evening and weekend chat reference hours include Monday-Friday 5pm to 8pm, and Saturday-Sunday 12pm to 6pm (Eastern Time Zone). There is some flexibility in scheduling, and interns are encouraged to swap chat reference shifts with one another as needed.
Duties
- Provide research assistance to Columbia University students, faculty, staff, alumni, and external researchers through the Ask A Librarian chat reference service
- Conduct a project with the guidance of a librarian supervisor
- Meet with librarian supervisor once per week
- Participate in monthly all-group internship meetings
Interns will work on one of the following projects, which can be completed remotely unless otherwise noted. In your application cover letter please describe which project(s) you are most interested in and why.
Data Literacy Outreach and Instruction. Availability: Fall 2025. Starting in the Fall 2025 semester, the Research Data Services (RDS) team will start recording their workshops and making the recordings, presentations, data, code, and exercises available either publicly, or accessible with university authentication. RDS is developing a new webpage to host links to the materials, which the intern will assist with populating. The intern will also assist with publishing the materials to the appropriate location and ensuring consistent presentation within those spaces. The intern will be encouraged to attend and assist in workshops (offered as either in-person or remote) as scheduling aligns, and will help in developing assessment tools that work best for RDS workshop formats.
CourseWorks & Open Educational Resources. Availability: Fall 2025. Columbia University students have expressed needs around textbook affordability. There is a goal within Columbia Libraries to try to meet some of these needs, particularly the needs of graduate students. There have been multiple projects to address this issue and this project builds upon those efforts. The intern will work with a set of syllabi from CourseWorks (the Columbia course management system) to explore automations for extracting required readings information from the documents, enhancing the citations if needed (e.g., from the Crossref API), and searching CLIO (the Libraries' catalog) to determine if open versions of the resources are provided by the Libraries. As a final product, the intern would document their workflows so that they could be replicated with a larger set of syllabi. Prior experience with Python or a similar language is required for this project.
Library Social Media Use in 2025. Availability: Fall 2025. This project focuses on the exploration of social media use for libraries considering algorithmic changes to platforms that have rendered them less social. Through a review of the relevant literature and an environmental scan, the intern will develop a social media strategy for the Association of College & Research Libraries Greater New York Metropolitan Chapter (ACRL/NY) Annual Symposium, including tailoring content to attract library school students and early career academic librarians. The intern will gain a thorough understanding of library social media outreach strategies, as well as the activities and needs of professional associations.
Optimizing United Nations Research Guides with an Information Literacy Lens. Availability: Spring 2026. While Columbia University Libraries’ United Nations (UN) research guides comprehensively highlight UN holdings physically at Columbia University as well as those available open access, more work can be done to better align the presentation and organization of these guides with how researchers engage with this type of information. This project involves: (1) Redesigning existing UN guides while being intentional about information seeking behavior and user needs, especially as related to the School of International and Public Affairs, and; (2) Teaching an online workshop on how to effectively locate and utilize UN resources for policy research. The intern will gain hands-on practice using the LibGuides platform for designing research guides, as well as experience providing library instruction for a broad academic audience.
- Curriculum Mapping. Availability: Spring 2026. For this project the intern will work with a liaison librarian to create a curriculum map—reviewing a program's curriculum to refine information literacy goals—of the Columbia Journalism School graduate program. The curriculum map will be used to inform opportunities for library instruction, one-on-one consultations, and other research support activities. This project is a good fit for an intern interested in patron-facing work in academic libraries and how to make research support activities more effective.
- Social Work Library Stacks Display. Availability: Spring 2026 (In-person project). The intern will design a display for the Social Work Library bookstacks using a mix of book displays and signage to increase user engagement with onsite, digital, and off-site collections. The display will increase user knowledge of types of collections, where collections are located, and how to access collections. The display will also encourage users to consult library staff for research support. This project will be ideal for someone enthusiastic about design and user experience in libraries.
- Must be enrolled in a Master of Library Science (MLS) or equivalent program during participation in the internship
- Demonstrated effective communication skills
- Interest or demonstrated ability to provide high quality research assistance
- Ability to work evenings and/or weekends (5-8pm Monday-Friday and 12-6pm Saturday-Sunday, Eastern Time Zone)
Applicants must reside in the United States to be eligible for consideration.
Applicant Instructions
Applications will be accepted from June 26th to July 16th, 2025.
To apply:
Please submit a cover letter and resume to the Ask A Librarian Internship Coordinators at AskALibrarianInternship@library.columbia.edu by Wednesday, July 16th at 11:59pm Eastern Time Zone.
Submit your cover letter and résumé as a single document (preferably PDF), with the naming convention: Lastname_Firstname_Application.pdf
Your cover letter should describe:
- How you meet the qualifications required for the internship
- Which project(s) you are most interested in conducting and why
- Which semester you wish to be considered for: Fall 2025, Spring 2026, or no preference
We expect to notify successful applicants in early August, and unsuccessful applicants in mid August.
Please note that there is no interview process for Ask A Librarian Interns, and candidates will be offered a position based solely on the strength of their application materials. Because of this, for the best chance of a successful application we do not recommend the use of generative AI assistants to draft your materials.
For Questions or Additional Information
Please contact the Internship Coordinators at AskALibrarianInternship@library.columbia.edu.
