Blog 1: Collections Processing and Goals for the Internship

 

Internship with the Baltimore Museum of Industry - Summer 2021

Claire Brocato

Collections Processing and Goals for the Internship

    To learn more about what it means to pursue a career in public history, for the summer and fall of 2021, I will be working and learning in the collections department of the Baltimore Museum of Industry (BMI). Because the various industries of Baltimore have played a significant role in the history of the city, the museum plays a vital role in keeping that history alive. In a small way, I will assist in that goal by working with the collection that helps tell that story. The position will be two days per week in the collection department, and my duties will include processing and cataloging recent acquisitions, conducting an inventory of objects on exhibit, and conducting inventory in the BMI’s offsite warehouse. 

    Additionally, I am excited about the opportunity to work at the BMI because it will help me learn more about what it means to be a public historian. Presenting history to the public is a very involved process, and I would want to learn more about some of the jobs and work that make that process possible. Because the BMI is a medium museum, the collections department also works closely with the education and archival departments, and as a result, I am excited to learn more about how a museum is run in unison. More specifically to my interests, my goal is to learn more about the careers that are related to material culture which, for the BMI, means working for the collection department. 

    Another goal for my internship with the BMI is to learn the specific ins and outs of collections management. Because the internship project will include processing, cataloging, and inventory, I would like to learn how to do every step of the process firsthand from people who do it for a living. As previously stated, the collections department works with the other departments of the museum, so I am especially looking forward to working on exhibits. More importantly, my main goal is to discover what a career in a museum would look like on a daily basis.