Week 12: The end has finally arrived

So I am sad to say that this was my last week of my internship. I'm not gonna lie, I kind of hated waking up super early but I loved where I worked and the people I met. Tuesday was my last day and really I just worked on my presentation that I had to do today. I went over it with Christine to see what she thought and just did a bit of a wrap up of everything I have done this summer. Since there was nothing left to do I did not come in on Wednesday. Today I had a intern presentation where I had to present a PowerPoint of all the work I did at the museum and honestly I was super nervous. But that's okay because from what Christine said I did an awesome job. I really think I did the best I could and presented all of my main points so that's a plus. Honestly I cannot stop thanking Dr. Beiler, Dr. Scot French, Ruben Madrid, Laura Cepero, Bethany Gray and of course Christine French for all the lessons and opportunities that they gave me. This internship has been so incredibly rewarding and I can look back at the work I've done and be proud of everything that I accomplished. I helped create a database, put a collection together, accession items and did some great networking along the way. This isn't something I'll ever forget. This experience was well worth it. Hope everyone had an amazing summer. Up next? Fall semester a.k.a. graduation!

Until next time,

-Ambar the History Student

Christine and I

Week 11 Day 21 & 22 (July 22 & 23): Let the digitization begin

So last week was quite the experience. On Tuesday Dr. Scot French, Christine and I headed to the public library in downtown Orlando to begin scanning some of the photos and older documents from the Vanderpool family file as well as some xerox copies from a few discontinued newspapers and an original copy of a newspaper from Eatonville. Last week I mentioned the Melrose Center and sorry for the mistake but we were actually heading to the main building on the 4th floor.

So we arrive on the 4th floor and right by the elevator is this huge scanner. I mean this is no ordinary scanner but this clearly really expensive and high tech machine. It was pretty impressive to see it in action. About half an hour in, Laura Cepero joined us and got a pretty good idea of what we would be sending her way so all of these scans could be uploaded through RICHES. To make a very long morning and story short, it took us about an hour to understand how the scanner work and to get it to the correct settings. It took another 2 - 2 1/2 hours to finish scanning everything.

While the work clearly wasn't hard it was exhausting since we were trying to get every detail correct. I am really proud of the work we did and the staff at the library were incredibly helpful and really interested in the items we brought along with us. I really could not have done all of this by myself if it wasn't for the team effort. So a major thank you to everyone who was there with me.

Wednesday was a pretty short day due to a death in my family so for the short time I was there I spent it updating the spreadsheet attached to the images taken for the documents in the Vanderpool file.

Before I finish up, here are a few photos I took on Tuesday.

The Orlando Public Library

The scanner of all scanners

Dr. French and one of the staff members trying to help us figure out how to work the scanner (that's Christine in the background)

Dr. French saving all of our images

So that's all for now. By the way this is my last week interning at the MHM. I'm sure it will be bitter sweet saying goodbye. This internship really went by so quickly. 

-Ambar the History Student

Week 10 Day 19 & 20 (July 15 & 16): The accessioning begins

So on Tuesday Christine and I came up with a plan as to what we planned on digitizing. Don't think I've mentioned it yet but we will be digitizing some materials at the new Melrose Center at the Orange County Library in Orlando. They have this huge, brand new scanner that we are going to use on some of these older pictures and documents. Christine thought it would be a good idea if we cut it down to one family so I thought the Vanderpool family would be the best choice. First because they are super underrated (mentioned this last week) but also their group of photos is small enough to practice on but still big enough for me to properly digitize and accession.

Ahh yes speaking of accessioning...

Wednesday we began the process of accessioning. Actually Tuesday Christine came up with this brilliant little plan to organize the photos and original documents and then begin a small spreadsheet describing each picture and slip of paper. That way it would be easier to identify what pieces we were accessioning without confusing ourselves. After everything was organized we realized we should probably call in an expert on the subject of accessioning. Our expert aka Bethany was nice enough to come to the museum and give us a crash course on how accessioning works and how to produce a number. It was actually quite easy once she explained everything. We began with the pictures in the Vanderpool file and it was kind of fun creating the numbers and plugging them into our mini spreadsheet first. Afterwards we took each item and entered it into PastPerfect. PastPerfect was something that Christine and I played with a bit until we understood how it worked and how to upload any type of information on there.

I honestly thought adding all of our information and plugging it into PastPerfect would be quick but it took me about two hours to do. It isn't that it's hard to do but it is a bit tedious. Also I'm pretty sure my eyes started crossing after the first hour. The trick is to make sure everything is perfect since deleting and starting over will eventually cost you some time (it happened to me twice).

I managed to accession all of the Vanderpool documents (receipts, letters, etc.) on the mini spreadsheet but unlike the photos, I was not able to add it to PastPerfect. But that is okay since I'll be finishing up the rest of the documents tomorrow or Wednesday after everything has been digitized.

Happy Monday and I hope everyone had a lovely weekend.

-Ambar the History Student

Week 9 Day 17 & 18 (July 8 and 9): The finding aid is finally finished

This week's work was pretty solid and the schedule I made for myself went smoothly (this rarely happens by the way). I finally, FINALLY finished the Finding Aid. The only thing I have left is to write the biographies of each family and send the final copy to Christine. I'm honestly really happy I started and finished this so quickly. I'm also quite proud of myself because I really did start this completely from scratch. It really was rewarding to complete something I absolutely had no experience doing.

On Wednesday I was also invited by Christine to go to a meeting for the MHM that included the Maitland mayor, the vice mayor, Christine's boss Andrea and other really important people with really important titles. I don't think I've ever been to a meeting like that but I agreed with Christine when she said it was important to show myself at a time and place like this (plus I got to see how important Christine and the work she does really is on a larger scale). The meeting really opened my eyes to how important Maitland's Art and History Museums are to the community and the long term needs of said community. Honestly the meeting made me want to get more involved and reinforced my passion for what I'm doing at the MHM.

Anyways, that is all for now. Next week we will probably start photographing the pictures from the Founding Families Collection, starting with the Vanderpool family (they seem to be highly underrated in my humble opinion).

Have a great weekend everyone!

-Ambar the History Student

Week 8 Day 15 & 16 (July 1 and 2)

Sorry (for like the millionth time) for the late update. So as to be expected if I plan anything for the week something will come up and all of my plans have to get rearranged. This week was no exception. However the change of plans was nothing extreme.

On Tuesday, Christine and I went over the plan of accessioning items and then creating a finding aid. About an hour into the day we realized maybe this isn't the best use of our time. Change of plans we decided it would be better if we just got straight to the finding aid first and accession everything later. Creating the finding aid honestly felt much less frustrating for the moment and I honestly don't mind that we did things backwards. By the way that is one of the things I like the most as far as working with Christine and this internship in general. Sometimes you get to make your own rules. It can be quite refreshing and makes you feel like you have some type of control over this giant process.  

This finding aid is something completely new to the both of us so I was basically learning as I went and after playing around with the idea of it all for a bit I created a format that would work best for the way documents and boxes have been set up both in the collection and in the museum itself. In order to meet the deadline for the schedule Christine created, I had to quickly set up this finding aid and I have to finish it by next Wednesday which includes all of the founding families and the Maitland minutes. 

Not gonna lie it took me all of Tuesday just to do one box (which included two families) and I was worried since I had to do at least 6 or more boxes within the next three days. Thankfully after the first day I felt confident enough on Wednesday as to how the finding aid was looking and everything I had already included in it. At that point I was able to do four more boxes and give a detailed description of what materials were enclosed in the box. 

If I continue at this rate I should be totally done by Wednesday and the finding aid will be a 100% completed when I take it home and add a biographical narrative for each family throughout the end of next week. 

Hopefully everything goes as smoothly next week as it did this week. 

Hope everyone is having a great July 4th weekend.

-Ambar the History Student 

Week 7 Day 13 (June 24)

So this week will be short and to the point.

On Tuesday I officially finished sorting the last of the Founding Families Collection. I think it is safe to say that 99% of all the information on all the families are in their designated boxes and on the specific shelves that Christine and I chose to store the collection. Christine and I went over a game plan as to how we are going to set up a finding aid for the collection after finding a pretty decent and detailed one in her office. Seriously this museum is like a magical house straight out of the world of Harry Potter. If you ask for something/need anything it will wondrously appear in the last place you expected to find it (I may or may not loudly ask for a brand new car...just saying).

I also did some research this week on how accession numbers work, how to create them for each item and that we need to add said accession numbers to PastPerfect. Since I will not have enough time to do every item in every box I will be sticking to a specific box in the collection that has the least amount of items (trust me it is still quite a few items) which contains information and photographs of two of the founding families. Hopefully if all goes well I will be able to start accessioning items by next week and I have already started adding information to the finding aid.

Also the reason this post includes only the work I did on Tuesday is because on Wednesday, due to a family emergency, I was not able to come in.

Anyways, hope everyone has a fabulous weekend.

-Ambar the History Student

Week 6 Day 11 and 12 (June 17 and 18): Photography for Dummies

So this week was just a little on the complicated and frustrating side. But hey life isn't perfect right? So this week Christine and I decided it was finally time to begin the process of photographing some of the more important documents at the museum. Laura Cepero was gracious enough to come to the museum to give us the guidelines of what the standards of the photos should be like (in case anyone forgot Laura works with RICHES as the Metadata Editor). Last Monday I was able to borrow a camera from the public history department at UCF and got this really fancy Canon camera along with a tripod. In my head I seriously thought it wasn't going to be that hard. Take a few pictures, make sure they weren't blurry and move on.

Yeah, not so much.

Christine thought it would be a good idea if we just practiced a bit so we started off with some Xerox copies of a newspaper that had no other existing editions and honestly no one's really sure where it came from. Any who it was placed on the floor on top of a black poster board. But as Laura played around with the camera's settings (because honestly I had no idea we had to set up the camera, just thought the camera would figure that all out...I'm really not as tech savvy as I thought I was) she also came to the conclusion that the tripod given to me would not allow us to take decent photos of an item on the ground. We also realized the lighting had to be just right for this to work. We didn't have enough lamps laying around so Christine called her husband Dr. French (you all should know him as one of the coolest history professors at UCF) who was kind enough to bring us extra lamps. After we had the light situation fixed we had to admit to ourselves that none of us knew what we were doing with this camera. Christine decided to call her father, Ruben, who was a retired photographer.

Before I go on any further with my story let me just pause here to tell everyone how cool Christine's dad is. He's this adorable, little old man who the moment he walked in the door got all business like and said, "Where's the problem?" I mean he was so interesting, sweet and funny that I had to take him to lunch. You don't meet cool grandfather's like that every day and NOT take him out to eat. He's my BFF he just doesn't know it yet. It's fine though, I'm sure he'll be cool with it.

So anyways, Ruben has all his equipment, camera, tripod, and all these extra parts for his equipment because come on the guy is totally a pro at this. To make a long story a little shorter after using his camera, trying to teach me how to use my camera and using every trick in the book that he knew we could not take a proper photo of the fine text on any of the documents that we used. He spent over an hour with me (as did Laura) trying to get a photo where the print was not blurry when I zoomed in. To say that it was frustrating was an understatement.

After an hour of trying everything, both Laura and Dr. French left, and the only solution I could come up with was to use an iPhone and see if that made a difference. Surprisingly enough, the photo came out perfect. When you zoomed in the letters were not blurry and totally readable. Finally, I was relieved. I decided to take a few more shots and emailed Laura some of the photos to see what she thought of them.

Fast forward to the next day and as excited as I am that we made a breakthrough with these pictures I get an email back from Laura that kind of deflated me a bit. Before I go on in no way, shape or form do I blame Laura. This isn't her fault, she's just following protocol. But first I found out that the photo needs to be at 600 dpi (our photos were no where near that) and it had to be set to .tiff (our photos were still in .jpg). I was definitely disheartening because Ruben and I had worked hard to get a hold of something that would work. Christine and I talked the next day and realized that for now we should wait a bit until we had a better game plan. So on Wednesday I spent the entire day finishing up my work on the database and the collection.

 But you know what honestly it is okay. It was a learning experience. It was also so cool to have a group of people helping me out and that Christine was able to call reinforcements and how they came through for her and I. So thanks to Dr. French for taking time out of his day to come over and bring some much needed light. Thanks to Laura for coming all the way from Orlando to help me out. A really big thanks for Ruben (aka my BFF) for being super patient and not giving up as well as showing me the ropes on how to take a proper photo. And of course thanks to Christine for not leaving me in the dark and leaving me to figure out this mess on my own. Having friends in the right places is always helpful. I definitely learned that this week.

So that's it for now and if you look below you will see some photos I took of the group. Until next week folks.

- Ambar the History Student

The man with the camera is Ruben and the pretty lady in the white top is Laura 

The man in blue is Dr. French and Christine is on his right. They were both reading something and honestly I have no idea what it was. However I'll bet you 10 bucks that it was something probably historical. 

Laura, Christine and Ruben 

Ruben (the BFF) and Christine (no idea what she was looking at)