Inventory and Re-Housing Project at the Museum of Early Trades & Crafts (METC)

METC is a New Jersey history museum founded in 1969. Our mission is to inspire a connection with New Jersey’s history, culture, trades, and crafts. We are an inclusive and collaborative organization where all feel welcome. We uphold the highest standards in museum practice with a professional staff, creating experiences and shared stories of the past to help visitors discover our collective history and culture.
METC maintains a collection of over 8,900 19th century artifacts to communicate these stories.

Project Background
The museum is embarking on a multiyear project for the design of a state-of-the-art visible storage facility. The goal of this project to create one accessible space where all artifacts will be housed in the same facility and monitored under high level temperature and humidity systems. In the preparation of this new space, METC will be moving all artifacts to offsite storage and will conduct a comprehensive collection inventory of the 8,900 plus artifacts housed in offsite storage and onsite at METC.

Scope of Internship
METC seeks an intern to assist in the above project. This project is ongoing, and internships will be available each semester, including summer, from 2021 through 2022. Goals of the internship will include:

• Work with staff to properly handle, pack, and document remaining artifacts in storage
• Work with Curator of Collections and staff to conduct collection-wide inventories of artifacts housed offsite and onsite at METC in part of the collections planning and rehousing project

Hours & Travel
Ideally, this student would work with METC staff 2-3 days a week for a maximum of 6 hours a day. This internship must be part of the student’s coursework and approved by the student’s department head or advisor. Students will need to possess their own car or have other means of transportation to and from the museum locations. Due to COVID-19 METC does not encourage carpooling to offsite storage locations during internship hours. Interns will need to be comfortable lifting objects on shelving units or boxes up to 35 lbs.

To Apply
Please send a letter of inquiry and resume to operations@metc.org and curator@metc.org.

METC follows all CDC guidelines regarding COVID-19 including masks, hand hygiene, cleaning of workspaces and social distancing guidelines. Students should be prepared to wear masks while working in the same spaces as others and follow the procedures. Training and policies will be given prior to beginning an internship.