Every year, the Institute welcomes students and volunteers from a wide range of academic backgrounds to support the activities of the Library and Digital Repository Office. Participants gain hands-on experience with collections and library workflows; learn archival policies and organisational structures; observe the management of analogue and digital collections; and engage with a wide range of archival practices, from cataloguing and organising collections to digitisation, working with different media formats, and creating digital exhibitions.
In 2025, the Programme brought together 21 students from nine universities across Türkiye. While the majority were based in Ankara, the cohort also included students from İstanbul and Zonguldak, reflecting a geographically focused yet academically diverse intake. Participants came from a wide range of disciplines, including Archaeology, History, Information Management, English Language and Literature, Social Work, and Computer Engineering, highlighting the Programme’s interdisciplinary nature and its relevance beyond a single academic field.
In 2024 and 2025, most of the interns were funded via the Lost Villages of the Upper Euphrates project and supervised by former BIAA Archivist Deniz Çit, to whom the Institute would like to extend thanks for her valuable support.
Bilkent Üniversitesi, Hacettepe Üniversitesi, Ankara Üniversitesi, TOBB ETÜ, TED University, Middle East Technical University, Başkent Üniversitesi, Koç University and Zonguldak Bülent Ecevit Üniversitesi.
For many, an internship is a line on a CV, but for participants in the BIAA programme, it often becomes a defining chapter in their professional lives. This was certainly the case for Alara Demir – an English Language and Literature student from Ankara – and Chris Dolphin, who came to the Institute from Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, where he was studying modern Anglophone history and culture.
Neither arrived with a rigid plan. Alara was searching for a placement required by her university and, after a fruitless search for humanities research institutions accepting interns, stumbled upon the BIAA. The allure was immediate. “Archaeology was a childhood dream,” she admits, and the Institute offered a connection to that world, a chance to “be a witness to perhaps small glimpses of that life or work.” Chris’s path was similarly serendipitous. “I didn’t know what I was getting into, really,” he confesses. The BIAA was simply one option on a list, but he was hoping for an experience that would be genuinely “instructive and not just resume padding.”
Both found that and more in the Digital Repository Office, working under the mentorship of Nurdan Atalan Çayırezmez and Gonca Özger. Their work was meticulous and meaningful. Alara dedicated her internships to detailed cataloguing for the Lost Villages of the Upper Euphrates project, a task that demanded patience and resourcefulness. She learned to cross-examine information across ministry databases and historical maps, a process that made her “quite studious with database searches.” For Chris, the challenges were similar. One of his first major tasks was deciphering the handwritten notes in the Seton Lloyd photographic albums. “Seton Lloyd had travelled widely, and though he couldn’t speak or read Turkish, he would write down phonics approximations of the places,” Chris explains, a puzzle that required deep engagement and research.
The challenges, however, were met with unwavering support. Alara deeply valued “the attentive care that my supervisors and the staff in general showed me,” a sentiment echoed by Chris, who notes that Nurdan and Gonca “treated me like a peer.” Chris was also struck by the interns’ collaborative spirit, in which knowledge was freely shared. “There is a philosophy in the Digital Repository where everyone is learning all the time,” he says.
This supportive environment did more than help them complete their tasks; it transformed their career trajectories. The experience crystallised Alara’s ambition to remain in the world of research. “I knew after working here that it was indeed the world of research, of contribution to research… that was the path for me,” she states, adding that the prospect of “doing menial paperwork in some corporation” became unthinkable. For Chris, the impact was even more profound. “My time at the BIAA totally changed the trajectory of my life,” he reveals. “I had no idea that I would be leaving the BIAA with a path for carving out a career in the humanities.”
The tangible outcomes were swift. Alara credits her BIAA experience—her familiarity with scanning processes and library work—with helping her secure a part-time position at her university library. For Chris, the connection was direct and powerful. His current supervisor specifically cited his work on the Connecting Archives Connecting People project as “his main motivation for hiring me,” proving that the skills and projects undertaken at the BIAA have a lasting value.
Their advice to future applicants is heartfelt and simple. “It will be a treasure,” Alara says, “an opportunity that is refreshing, unique and resourceful.” Chris encourages anyone interested to “just go for it,” describing the BIAA as having “the most welcoming and learning-focused culture of anywhere I have ever worked.” For those seeking more than just a line on a CV, the BIAA internship offers exactly what Alara and Chris found: a place to belong, a challenge to grow, and a clear path forward.
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