Final Post USHMM

As my internship at the Holocaust Museum comes to a close, there is a bittersweet ending to it all. Obviously I am grateful for the opportunity that was presented to me. I have been able to utilize both my Russian language and my deep admiration for history in the archival field. I got to feel like my work and the work we did at the Memorial Museum meant a lot more than labeling videocassettes or translating Russian interviews into English. We were able to provide indefinably valuable information to the rest of the world. In this digital age, ignorance can no longer be permitted in society. While working at the Linthicum branch, I was able to see some of the 3D objects. These included suitcases, carts, and even uniforms worn by actual Holocaust victims. What was interesting about the uniforms was that they had purple patches still on them, signifying them as Jehovah’s witnesses. There is something to be said to see these objects in person versus in a photo or in a film, or movie. There is a realization that all of these horrific events actually occurred. There is a power evoked seeing objects witness to the unimaginable genocide. It is a bitter goodbye because there is still so much work to be done. The generation of those who laid witness to the Holocaust is dying out; their stories dying with them. Oral history is one of the major ways to acquire these memories, and I would love to continue working along side the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in their quest of fulfilling their mission statement: Never Again. I want to thank James Gilmore, an archives specialist, and all of the people at the Holocaust Museum immensely for allowing me to have this opportunity. I think that I will never again be the same person.

Priddy Library Internship-Final Blog Post

            My internship at the Priddy Library these past few months have been eye-opening and rewarding. As was planned, the Zika virus exhibit was completed and put up for display in mid-April. On five different panels, we explained the history, transmission, prevention, and symptoms of the virus. In addition to these five panels, three posters from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that included facts about mosquito bite prevention were displayed. Part of the importance of libraries comes from their position to reach out and inform the public and the Priddy Library has done just that. As summer approaches and our contact with mosquitos is bound to increase, the library held this exhibit and hosted a panel discussion to educate the public about the risks of the Zika virus should it reach Maryland. The two mosquitos that have been found to carry the virus can live as far north as Maryland so the possibility that the virus will affect our state is not unimaginable. The panel included four experts who spoke on the current information that is known about the Zika virus and detailed the steps Maryland has already taken and will continue to take to fight the spread of the virus.

  

The Zika virus exhibit was the last scheduled exhibit for the semester so I was introduced to Omeka. Omeka is an online tool that allows users to publish their exhibits online. The user can create a collection and add items to it such as still images, videos, or oral interviews. When the item is added, 16 fields of metadata are filled in. Metadata describes the nature of the collection or item added and gives information such as the creator, description, and coverage. So far, I have gone through each exhibit that was displayed this semester as well exhibits from previous semesters. Thankfully for me, Omeka does not require an in depth background in technology—it is actually designed for users who are not IT specialists. Nevertheless, it is an important tool to be familiar with as more and more academic libraries are using it. Omeka is just one piece of the valuable experience and knowledge that I have gained through this internship. I have also come to have a greater understanding for the role libraries play in communities—whether in an academic setting like this or a public one. They inform and educate the public while encouraging them to think critically. While my plans after I get my degree continue to be a big question mark, this internship has shown me that library science is a serious possibility after graduation. 

Special Collections Post 2

After I helped to process the Circuit negatives from the Hughes Company Cirkut Negatives Collection, I thought the hardest part was over. While the incredibly important task of documenting the negatives was tedious, I felt the need to note every possible detail; this made creating the finding aid a much more practical enterprise. Finding aids are meant to be used by researchers so they can get an overview of a collection, and to see if it is relevant to their work. The finding aid explains what is in a collection. It is broken into the overview, biographical note, scope and content note, provenance information, access and use, subject headings, and series description and container list. The overview is a summary of the information in the collection. The biographical note gives information about the person, organization, or general topic of the collection. The scope and content note explains what is and is not included in the collection. The provenance information sections describe any processing the collection has gone through. The access and use section tells researchers how they can access the collection as well as any restrictions on the collection. The subject headings section explains who created the collection and any subjects. The series description and container list houses the container list. While at first glance I thought it would be easy to make the finding aid, I was definitely wrong. I wanted to create the best finding aid possible, so I spent a majority of my time making sure each section was as informative as it could be. Now that the Hughes Company Cirkut Negatives Collection has a finding aid, it will be much easier for any researcher interested in any of the negatives to discover what they are looking for in less time.

2nd Blog, Things have gotten interesting

So it has been a little while since my first blog posting, but there is a pretty good reason for that.  My internship at START continues to require me to not talk too much about what we are doing since the projects we are working on are government sponsored and have required us to sign NDAs.  However, my intern group has recently switched to a new project, and while I still can't talk too much about it, I can discuss some of the things that I have been doing with this new project.  We are currently looking for future threats that might/will be coming down the pipeline, in a specific venue, over the next five to ten years.  This is a really fun project.  It is very research oriented.  We have been looking at industry publications, academic journals, and even some fiction books.  We have been told that this is extremely important for the future of policy making for the next administration, so while there is a very serious aspect to what we are doing, it is still very fun to work on a project that in essence is attempting to predict the likelihood of future events.  This internship has been extremely eye opening for me so far.  Prior to this I was pretty sure that I wanted to go into intelligence analysis, or something similar (NSA, CIA hire a lot of history majors just in case you were wondering). However, now that I have spent time with START I am pretty sure that if I pursue  a career along these lines, it will not be as an analyst.  Rather it would be in a similar research capacity where I can get out of an office from time to time.  One more post to go, and fortunately we have one more project coming up before the end of the internship, hopefully I can talk a bit more about that one.

USHMM Post 2

These last few months have been an eye-opening experience. Working for the Holocaust Museum has been very rewarding. After the interviews that I had to translate from the Latvian and Russian witnesses, I was then given Ukrainian and Jewish survivors of the genocide. Working from home, I get to sit down and listen to hours of recollections of atrocities and murder and all around depression. At times it is very taxing on the soul to hear these stories over and over again. Yet, after a while, one becomes sort of accustomed to it all and it becomes just a job. These summaries also become basis for keyword searches used by academics studying this time and subject in history. On average these interviews run approximately 50 minutes to an hour, but it takes me about an hour and a half to get everything translated and onto the page. The summaries tend to be around a page and a half single spaced. All of these interviews are very moving and have taught me just how important collective memory and speaking up is in matters like these. There was actually a Ukrainian interview that I had translated that stuck out to me. The man being interview stated that it wasn’t until after the war was over that those who witnessed the mass execution the Germans had committed in their town began to speak out. Not only are collective memory and speaking the truth absolutely crucial to this project, but fear also plays an enormous role. Many times that the witnesses, be it Russians, or Ukrainian, or Belarusian or any other nationality, are asked fairly specific question, they tend to respond with “I was only a child and I was afraid”. It is still amazing how brave they are now to speak out. During the Russian interviews one of the interviewees begged the younger generation not to allow such a Holocaust to happen again. Their generation almost sacrificed themselves to keep up from experiencing such a tragedy again. I just hope that we can fulfill her plea.

Grow & Fortify Post-2

Grow & Fortify Post #2

On this second update of my internship I can say I have been very pleased with the project I have been a part of and with what I have learned. I have been involved in reviewing and drafting several pieces of legislation to help our clients throughout the Maryland legislation session and have seen good results for most of them. As the legislative session has progressed and is approaching its end, most of the bills we worked on and submitted have passed one chamber and are anticipated to pass the other one to eventually become law. The very first bill I worked on has seen great results after many reworks over the past month. It involved a donation issue with our clients that had been an operating practice for decades until recently the State decided it needed to be regulated. Our initial writing to eliminate our clients from the regulation was considered too broad by the State agency involved with the issue. So, after changes and several discussions with representatives from the agency, my supervisor was able to secure an agreement on the final language of the bill. The final bill with amendments has made it through Maryland’s Senate and has seen good results in the House leading us to anticipate its passage into law. Other bills I have worked on have seen similar results with a few exceptions. As the legislative session proceeds further and comes to an end I will provide more information on them and their outcomes.

Along with working on legislation at the state level, I was also asked to become involved in a zoning issue at the county level involving agri-tourism. Grow & Fortify represents clients from the craft alcohol industries, but also farmers or essentially those involved in value-added farming. Upon beginning the assignment, the agri-tourism issue turned out to be more complicated than anticipated. This lead some of us reviewing the zoning issue to believe a rewrite of existing law was required rather than changing zoning regulations. Thinking this might be necessary, I was asked by my supervisor to do research on agri-tourism laws and if there are other states or counties with similar legislation that we can analyze and base a rewrite of the law off of. My research showed agri-tourism turned out to be more established in other areas of the country with a few states having laws on it. However, reviewing them showed their language did not solve our problem, as their legislation was not too different from the existing law in Maryland. After coming together and discussing the issue again it became apparent that all of us recognized the same problems but could not determine the appropriate way to find a solution. It was agreed that with the limited amount of time left, what at least needed to be done was addressing the issue at the regulation level to see if something of benefit could be achieved. This issue will grow over the years and become more complicated. Unfortunately, I will not be there to play a part in how it turns out but learned a lot during the experience. I have been able to learn very much about state laws, how they are written and than implemented. All of this relates to my thesis with the development and administration of legislation. Seeing the back and forth in real life of a law being passed, then administered and found to have issues, has been very informative and interesting due to its relation to my research. I have also been very fortunate to be trusted with my research skills and able use it to serve a significant purpose throughout my internship.

The Quince Orchard Experience

Sometimes you agree to participate in a project without actually understanding what the full process entails. My first month interning for the Quince Orchard Project was an eye-opening experience. Prior to starting I had the privilege of meeting with Jason Green the organizer of the QOP during the Fall semester therefore I was able to start interning before the Spring semester began. I had a brief understanding of the QOP, I knew Green was attempting to film a documentary about his childhood community. Green is a masterful salesman, the type of person who can sell mashed potatoes to a potato farmer. Therefore, the idea of working with someone with such impressive social skills was appealing to me. At the very least being part of the process could help me sharpen my social skills and help with networking.  In January we met to discuss the overall project as well as my tasks for the semester.

Green explained to me the massive enterprise which made up the Quince Orchard Project. There were several layers to the QOP. Not only was he looking to finishing making a documentary on the Quince Orchard community, but he was also exploring the idea of turning his family property (which includes a church, schoolhouse and cemetery) into a museum. It was rather confusing and I wasn’t sure whether Jason really had a firm idea on how he would finish his goals but his enthusiasm was enough to calm my nerves.

Green is a very organized individual, which should come as no surprise to anyone because he once worked on Obama’s campaign staff. During this meeting Green laid out a number of tasks that I would be responsible for during the course of the semester. These tasks included searching grants for the site and filming project, scanning documents, mailing packages and researching individuals from the Quince Orchard community. As someone who had no experience in searching for grants I was a little overwhelmed by the idea but I tried to take it in stride. I also knew that this wasn’t my first task, so I would have time to familiarize myself with the process before I was expected to complete the task.

For the first couple of weeks I was given fairly simple tasks. I received two folders of documents to scan and fifteen packages to mail to individuals who had donated to the film project. I scanned the countless documents which ranged from newspaper articles about the community, old pictures of the site to church food order forms. Green informed me that I would be expected to read the documents and write a brief abstract about each paper. Though it was time consuming, it was not difficult. When the semester started I began to start learning about the process of searching for grants. After I informed Dr. Blair about my tasks, she introduced me to Irene Munster one of the head librarians at USG. Mrs. Munster showed me the basics of searching for grants using the library database. Although it was a difficult process I was told by various parties that this was a skill that could help me later on in life. It was an busy first month but at least I began before the semester started so my schedule wasn’t very busy.