The National Council for Preservation Education (NCPE)’s Internship Program is a partnership with the National Park Service and other Federal agencies with cultural resource protection and public land management responsibilities. The purpose of the program is to accomplish needed and important work on federally protected lands while providing program participants with professional experience in their chosen fields. Interns work under the guidance of agency staff who are subject area experts to carry out the mission of the park.

To be eligible, applicants must be between 18 and 30 years old (or 35 if a veteran) when starting the internship, a college student or recent graduate (within the past 12 months at the time of application), enrolled in a degree-seeking program, and a U.S. citizen or permanent resident.

The successful candidate will work on-site at Chaco Culture National Historical Park, near Nageezi, New Mexico. The intern will be responsible for organizing the Chaco National Park Service (NPS) Staff Library under the direction of the Park Archivist. This work will include an inventory of current holdings; weeding old and out-of-scope items, and compiling a list of potential new acquisitions with input from Chaco staff. The intern will follow the formal NPS Library Program guidelines to remove items from NPS LIBRIS (the online NPS library cataloging system) and develop an alternate strategy for local tracking of library and information resources. Internship deliverables will include a written draft Library Plan to guide library operations moving forward and documentation of actions completed to implement the Plan during the internship.

The internship is based at a remote national park unit. The intern will be assigned government housing (possibly shared) in the small housing area only a few steps from the Visitor Center/duty station and provided a housing stipend. The closest basic service (gas station) is 20 miles away and extended services (restaurants, grocery stores, medical facilities, etc.) are 75 miles away in Farmington, NM. Travel to and from the park requires transit on paved and unpaved roads which can occasionally become impassable in wet weather. There is no public transportation and possession of a personal vehicle is essential. Internet service is available. The remote location makes for quiet evenings and spectacular star gazing at this UNESCO World Heritage site.

The target start date for this position is August-September 2025.

A background security investigation may be required prior to the start date. All NCPE internships accrue 4 hours of PTO for every 80 hours worked.

Qualified NCPE interns who complete their internships may count their position towards earning a Public Land Corps (PLC) Non-Competitive Hiring Authority certificate.  Once earned, the PLC certificate may be used to apply for eligible Federal permanent, temporary, or term positions. Visit https://preservenet.org/ncpe-internships/ for details about this benefit. Successful completion of the internship does not guarantee Federal employment.