Internships at the Manuscriptorium Digital Library












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            * Internships at the Manuscriptorium Digital Library
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            The European Office of Charles University has a long standing cooperation with the Nationa

            Czech Republic. CU Erasmus students have the opportunity to join the library for internshi
            provide assistance to the community, but also enhance their career prospects and help them
            experience.

            The unpaid internship, which sees 10-30 Erasmus students participate each term, involves t
            of digital full text versions of historical texts, which are then published in the Manuscr
            Library. All students are given friendly guidance throughout their time with the library a

            to use essential programs such as an XML Editor with their primary focus being enabling pu
            historical documents.

            During their time with the library, students can choose which texts they wish to work on a
            their skills, may work on more challenging texts. The positions are also flexible – meanin
            only want to undertake the internship for a short time, they can, while still providing th

            valuable assistance.
            While the internship remains flexible with no particular deadlines to meet, this type of w
            hard work over plenty of hours even for those who are most experienced in this field of wo

            while working and gaining experience, students should feel comfortable knowing they are wo
            helping not only the general public, but also scholars such as historians who may use the 
            Furthermore, other students may also benefit from such material being available to them.

            The internship is particularly popular among students with interests in history, archive a
            science, IT or literature and languages. During their time working, students are able to l
            one another, viewing how those from different subjects use the programs in order to gain m

            understanding themselves. In the past, for example, humanities students have been able to 
            students and vice versa.
            Tomáš Klimek, researcher for the Digital Library Department of the National Library, said:

            who participate in the internship help us massively with developing digital texts and enha
            digital library. In return, they learn new skills, open new possibilities of research and 
            opportunity to work on something real with real outputs and real, visible results.”

            Tomáš Klimek also said that ‘many historians are still unable to use digital tools’ and wh
            the ever-changing world of technology means that history must also move forward, and Erasm
            help with this by participating in this unique and great opportunity that is certainly not
                                                                                                      
            Luke Cowley is an English second-year Journalism student at De Montfort University in Leic
            which have both led to his interest in journalism and technology. Luke is keen to write fo
            aspriring journalists.