Internship: Neville Public Museum

Summary

2008-05-13T05:45:00.001-07:00

I am very glad that I chose to do an Internship before I graduated, especially this particular one through the Neville Public Museum. Everyone there was very friendly and you can tell by working with them they they love what they do. It was nice to get out of the classroom for a little bit and engage in some more intense historical research and take the information I reseach and actually do something with it instead of just writing another paper.

As far as my Internship Essay I wrote about Quiren Groessl, it was very rewarding. When I think of what historical research should be, I think of what I did to write the bio on Quiren Groessl. I contacted his grandchildren, as well as people who knew him many years ago. I actually felt liking I was communicating with this man the entire time I researched him, and I think its that feeling which makes most of us want to study history.

It was rewarding to actually put some of the resarch skills I have learned over the last four years top work and even learn some new methods. I was lucky that I was immersed into WWI history as soon as I started because with my time in the Marines, I already had a limited history of that period and my knowledge of ballistics was helpful when it came to artifacts identification. I am seriously considering remaining a volunteer there simply because I enjoyed it so much.

Day 76-Last Day

2008-05-12T13:57:00.000-07:00

Today I was only in the Museum or about an hour. I brought Trevor up to date as to what I was doing and what still needs to be done. I printed off the WWI spreadshet for him and Louise so they know what information is missing ARGUS. I said my goodbyes and went home to prepare my portfolio and final paper to turn in as part of my Internship.

Day 75

2008-05-09T18:53:00.000-07:00

Today I spent most of my time photographing the WWI artifacts in the back room in storage. I went back and forth between there and the compute were I edited them on Photoshop and put them into ARGUS. Towards the end of the day, I put back most of Larry's photo equipment since it is near the end of my Internship.

Day 74

2008-05-08T18:46:00.000-07:00

Today I went back and forth between the backroom and the computer in storage while taking photos of the artifacts. The majority of the time was spent formatting them using Photoshop and entering them into ARGUS.

Day 73

2008-05-07T14:12:00.000-07:00

Today I took the little time I had in the afternoon and I took more photos of the WWI artifacts in the back. Ive got about half of them done and I should be able to finish them up tomorrow and hopefully have them imported before my internship is over.

Day 72

2008-05-06T14:29:00.000-07:00

Today I spent most of my time removing the photos I took yesterday from the memory card and importing them onto the W: drive. I then formatted them to spec and assigned them to the appropriate file on ARGUS.

Day 71

2008-05-05T14:39:00.001-07:00

Today I began taking pictures of the WWI artifacts so I can add them into ARGUS. Larry helped me by setting up a small lighting studio in the back which will give me better quality photos. Everything is moving right along and I should be able to finish this part up tomorrow.

Day 70

2008-05-02T18:52:00.000-07:00

Today I spent the entire morning helping John light the Trilobite exhibit. Once I returned from class, I spent the time I had finishing up the information for the WWI spreadsheet, which is as done as it can be right now. There were no records in ARGUS for many of them. Hopefully on Monday I can start taking pictures of the artifacts and putting them into the system.

Day 69

2008-05-01T14:49:00.000-07:00

Soon after I arrived today I helped John move some stuff in the Trilobite exhibit he is working on. I spent the rest of the day on teh WWI spreadsheet. There was little info available on ARGUS for the reminaing artifacts, so I cross-referenced the artifact info with the card file and actually found more fo what I was looking for.

Day 68

2008-04-30T12:44:00.001-07:00

Today was shorter than normal since Ive got class in the morning, but when I arrived I went back to work on the WWI spreadsheet. I went through ARGUS and copied down the classifications for each item according to the Nomenclature. Once I've finishied with that, I plan on photographing each artifact and transferring the photo into ARGUS.

Day 67

2008-04-29T20:43:00.001-07:00

Today I started out by taking all of my label information and other research and plugging it into ARGUS, so it can be referred to later on. Once I returned from class I gathered a little bit more information and photographs for my biography on Quiren Groessl.

Day 66

2008-04-28T19:17:00.000-07:00

This morning I reviewed the Bellin labels and they were good to go. Trevor showed me how to print them and I took them down to teh Clean Room and mounted them on some heavy cardstock. Then I found some mounts which I wanted to use and we gathered everything up and took it down by the schibit. The Bellin people were still finishing up, so I went to class and when I returned I placed all the artifacts in teh case, mounted the labels, and Trevor and I closed everything up.

Day 65

2008-04-25T13:02:00.000-07:00

Today was pretty much slow all around. I got some feedback from Trevor this morning about the label for teh portable xray machine and the labels are pretty much ready to be printed. The Bellin guys finished up the grunt-work of the exhibit so on Monday we can print off the labels and start to piece the exhibit together.

Day 64

2008-04-24T16:18:00.000-07:00

This morning I assembled all of the medical artifacts that I hadn't chosen to be part of the exhibit and I took some time out to find where they belong and I put them back in storage. I then checked over the portable x-ray machine and got some patent and copyright info which allowed me to do some further research. I found out that it is one of the first "shockproof" portable X-Ray machines and I changed the label to reflect that. My afternoon shift consisted of mainly proofreading and finding out anything else about the stuff before the final labels are printed.

Day 63

2008-04-23T13:58:00.001-07:00

This afternoon when I arrived I talked with Trevor and he showed me how to format the labels on Microsoft Publisher. He had received the Portable X-Ray Machine from Bellin and I made a tentative label for it, but I will need to brainstorm and make it a little better.

Day 62

2008-04-22T09:12:00.000-07:00

This morning went really slow. I was on the computer in the Collections office since the one in storage was being used and no one was around to unlock the Library. There wasn't much else that needs to be done (I think) with the Bellin labels, so I think when I return this afternoon Im gonna track down Trevor and see if there is anything else he wants me to do with them.

This afternoon, Trevor gave me the specified font and text color that Bellin wants them to be and I copied everything onto Microsoft Publisher and changed the font and color. I need to leave a few minutes early so I cna ge to the bank and pay Ellen's car payment, but I plan on asking Trevor tomorrow about which letters, if any, are in BOLD and any indentations, etc.

Day 61

2008-04-21T12:48:00.000-07:00

Today I brought my digital camera with me. Trevor had suggested that I take pictures of the artifacts that I selected for the Bellin exhibit for my portfolio, and I'm glad he did, because I wouldn't have thought to do that otherwise. So I layed out all the items I had pulled from storage and took pictures of them to catalog for my final portfolio. I also saved to my flash drive all of the research reports I had done so far and I can turn those in as well. I spent the reest of the morning and afternoon sprucing up the labels I have and did some more research just to make sure that I didn't neglect any cool information about Bellin and 20th century medicine.

Day 60

2008-04-18T17:55:00.000-07:00

This morning I was pretty much down in the Joe Heller exhibit. John went up on the pneumatic lift and I pushed him all around the room while he moved some flood lights around and got the lighting of the exhibit just right. That ate up most of my morning. However, prior to that I was able to alter my labels a little bit more and I mentioned it to Trevor. He let him know in passing that I had changed them and he made a few more suggestions which I implemented in the afternoon. I used my last few minutes of the day to send an e-mail off to Matt and Carolyn Groessl. They are grandchildren of the man I am writing a biography about and they have been most helpful by offering to answer any family questions I have, especially concerning their grandfather.

Day 59

2008-04-17T19:31:00.000-07:00

Today I did a little work in the Library as far as research goes. Then John asked me and Emily to help mount some plexiglass over the cartoons in the new exhibit. These are mostly political and current event cartoons drawn up by a local newspaper artist who is still working. I like this a lot better than the abstract hippi crap that was there before. Anyway, after I returned from class I took a trepanation tool which was part of the surgical kit I found a few days ago. This tool was used around 1900 to bore a hole in the patients skull and relieve pressure. I asked Trevor if I could make the artifact its own item instead of leaving it part of the kit itself. He said it was fine and I did a quick research run and wrote up a label for it.

Day 58

2008-04-16T12:52:00.001-07:00

When I arrived this afternoon, I decided to take another look at the medical artifacts in storage and I came across a surguical kit used by Dr. Brett, who sold his practice to Dr. Bellin, and it had some really cool tools including a bone saw. The problem is that it was used c. 1900 and all fo the bulky artifacts would be at the beginning of the case since Bellin wants it to be chronological. It would therefore be visually unbalanced.

Day 57

2008-04-15T18:04:00.000-07:00

Today I met with Trevor and went through the artifacts I organized. He gave me a few pointers as to what other things I might want to incorporate into it and a few things I can do with my labels. I started to look through a few other places to find information, but my time was limited so I could only do so much at the end of the day.

Day 56

2008-04-14T19:16:00.000-07:00

Today I did a little more diggin and found some patent information about a few of the medical artifacts. I am up to about seven identifiable pieces which can be put in the Bellin exhibit. Trevor wanted to postpone meeting with me until tomorrow, so I have a little more time to gather some more information.

Day 55

2008-04-11T13:54:00.001-07:00

Today I started to research more of the years for the artifacts. I have almost all of them done except the ones which look the same as when the device was first invented. This makes it a little more difficult to research. Its not as big of a problem as I had imagined, since Trevor said that not all of them would likely fit into the case and I could pick and choose which ones I wanted in the exhibit. I'm gonna meet with him on Monday and see what we have to work with and talk about which items would fit geometrically best in the case.

Day 54

2008-04-10T14:18:00.000-07:00

Today I arrived and finished the last of the artifact labels that I needed to do. I am currently at 11 artifacts, but would like 12 just because I'm weird like that. Its rather difficult to find things which meet the criteria. I would like to feature something which encompasses the idea of wellness and preventative medicine, since that was what Dr. Bellin pioneered. When I returned after class, I started to find out the years some of these things were used in, but no luck. That is gonna take some work.

Day 53

2008-04-09T13:12:00.000-07:00

Today was a shorter one again since I had class in the morning. I spent most of the afternoon researching the years the artifacts were used or made in. I am now up to 11 medical artifacts for the Bellin Exhibit and I am hoping to gather one more.