Vocational Training & Internships

Vocational Training for Information Assistants (FaMI)

Every three years, the BBF offers a vocational training course beginning on September 1, for information assistants (FaMI – Fachangestellte für Medien- und Informationsdienste), specialized on library services. The training course will lead to a recognized qualification, it is part of a dual vocational education and training programme (apprenticeship). Practical training is offered by the BBF, while the theoretical part is run by the Louise-Schroeder-Schule – Oberstufenzentrum Bürowirtschaft und Verwaltung, an upper secondary college for office management and administration, in Berlin-Lichterfelde. Trainees will serve diverse practical placements during their course which enable them to gain insights into further general aspects of the profession, assuring a qualified transition to the labour market. The contents taught correspond to the official regulations for training in the field of information assistance.

You will find more detailed information regarding the profession in the database of professions, BERUFEnet and on the website Mein Beruf BIBLIOTHEK. (=Library – my profession), only in German.

If you have any further questions regarding the vocational training programme at the BBF, please contact Anne Danzmann.

Internship in the Library

The library can provide placements to trainees in the field of information assistance (exchange trainees for the information assistant training courses FaMI-ÖB, FaMI-WB), secondary students on a work experience placement, or university students enrolled in a library and information science course. A practical placement may last between one week and 22 weeks.

If you have any further questions regarding a placement, please contact Anne Danzmann.

Internship in the Archive

The BBF archive offers internships to university students enrolled in archive studies so that they can serve the mandatory placement stipulated in the training regulations respectively the course guide for university students – such a placement is mandatory for at least six weeks but students may also spend an entire practical semester at the BBF. Following a general introduction to the history of the house and the collection, the students are engaged in archival scientific working operations. For example, they will be working on preservation measures, ordering and cataloguing of archival holdings following instruction, edition of finding aids and revision of existing indexing data.

University students specializing in educational science or history – preferably with a focus on the history of education – are welcome to serve their mandatory practical internship in the BBF archive. Even ahead of the research placements, the students’ research interests will be queried and discussed, e.g. educational science in the GDR, education in the Kaiserreich era, education in the Weimar Republic, pictures as sources of pedagogical research, reform pedagogy. Students will first be introduced to the history of the BBF and the archived stock. They will then be familiarized with archive scientific work; they will learn how to handle historical sources and be given an introduction to the ancillary sciences of history. In due course of their placement, the students are instructed to catalog and index small unprocessed legacies, personal papers or collections, wich might later provide a source for an academic thesis (diploma, bachelor, masters, doctoral thesis).

If you request any further information, please contact Dr. Bettina Reimers.

Internship in the Research Unit

University students, preferably from history or education science courses, are welcome to serve a practical placement in the BBF research area. These placements are subject to the availability of supervising staff. The duration of such placements is aligned to respective study regulations. The students will receive a general introduction to the history of the BBF and its stock as well as its operating procedures and find out about the three areas of work and their close collaboration, i.e. the archive, the library and the research area. They will moreover be introduced to educational historian research processes and depending on circumstances they will be involved in ongoing research activities. Whenever possible, we are happy to meet the students’ individual research interests

If you require any further information, please contact Dr. Tilman Drope.