Hello all, my name is Ambar Payne and I am currently a senior at the University of Central Florida. I am majoring in history and hope to be enrolled in a Master's program in library science by 2015. My hope is that this internship will give me some up close and hands on experience of the type of work archivists are tasked with. This blog will be all about said internship, the work I'll be doing, the learning experience I'll gain and of course some of the problems I'll have to deal with head on.
I might have possibly rambled a bit so to get to the point what IS my internship about? I'll be working this entire summer with the Maitland Historical Museum's archives (aka their research library) alongside museum curator, historian and all around awesome lady Christine French. I'll be taking inventory of all the boxed and shelved materials which have been placed on four large, moving shelves (you know which bookshelves I'm talking about, the ones where getting crushed in between them could actually happen but no one wants to talk about it at the funeral because it's such a weird way to die). This includes both written documents and "3D" objects such as telegraphs, antique porcelain dolls, women's clothing from the 19th and 20th century and really anything else that has been donated. After I've taken inventory of all the boxes on all the shelves Christine and I will create categories or collections in which to place all of these items.
The goal was to do a shelf a week but today, on our first day, we managed to do a full 5 shelves. Between the both of us we plugged in as much information as we could into an Excel spreadsheet, breaking down these items as much as possible. The more detailed the easier to find. Until we ran into the problem of, "Hey wow, that last box had two items and this one has 20. Lets get a new strategy going." Apparently these types of problems happen in small museums all the time so I just took a deep breath, hoped for the best and revised our strategy. Things that may not be as important definitely get a description because we need to know what is in the box, which has become its temporary home, but anything that was incredibly important received much more detail and given a higher priority (sorry plastic View Master, you were cool but how did you get here?).
I realized how much I really don't know about archiving and no matter how much history I think I know, the more objects I pulled out of a box the more I didn't realize what it was or from what era it came from. I definitely have a lot to learn but I'm not ashamed of that, in fact that really gets me excited because it gives me a chance to learn something new, allow me to be more independent in my work and I haven't had this much fun in a long time. It's like going to work without realizing that's what you're there for and like rummaging through a really cool antique shop looking and touching things that were created over a 100 years ago.
I think this is enough for now but I'll be back to write more everyday I have to "work." Tomorrow I'll be doing a lot more solo work with Christine taking a little bit of a backseat, where today I got more of a pattern going with very close supervision. I'll try to upload some pictures, give little tidbits about the Maitland Historical Museum and all the work I'll be doing. Until tomorrow folks!
-Ambar the History Student
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