Artifacts and Accession Numbers

Photo: "Back Closet 2"

    In January of 2026, the interns and I returned to the Howard County Center for African

American Culture after winter break and got into the bulk of the collections. There is work to be

done both in the museum and in the library, but we started work in the museum’s “Back Closet

2” which had three bookshelves full of materials. All of the interns were given access to a

museum spreadsheet, which was divided into three tabs. The first tab was titled “Data Drafting”

and this was where we would record all of the information about objects that had attached

accession numbers. The second tab was for objects with conflicting accession numbers, and the

third was for objects with no accession numbers.

    The majority of what we catalogued over the first month had no accession numbers, and

were taken out of the closet for us by our internship supervisor. These included mostly paper

materials, including newspaper clippings, photographs, posters, calendars, community flyers,

family reunion records, and more. With these, we recorded all information available such as

dates, names, dimensions, materials, and condition, and left them organized in the center’s

office.

    After we finished with that portion of materials, we began on the rest of “Bookshelf 2” in

the back closet. Most of these objects now had accession numbers with them, and the vast

majority so far have been vinyl records that were bought, donated, or gifted to the center.

Recording objects with accession numbers is similar to the ones without, but we also had to

include the number, the source and collection, as well as the location (e.g. Back Closet 2,

Bookshelf 2, Shelf 3). After accessioned objects were recorded in the Data Drafting spreadsheet

tab, we then had to enter them into Past Perfect, the museum collection management software

that the center uses. Most of this was copy and pasting information from the spreadsheet to the

software, but there was quite a learning curve in getting accustomed to using PastPerfect. So far,

the internship has been mostly data collection and entry, and I’m gaining valuable experience in

handling and managing museum collections.

Bridging Documentation, Restoration and Presentation

     As an intern with no task specifically assigned, I have been able to float around Direct Dimensions a bit and see a few of the distinct departments that the company has and get a good idea of what each one does. I started out in the cultural heritage/art preservation area and spent a good amount of time with the project management head there. He was able to walk me through a few of their client interactions from inception to completion, and the breadth of what they do here is genuinely impressive. One of the projects I was lucky enough to get a peek into involved working with the Central Park Conservatory to document, preserve and rehabilitate historic stonework and art installations including the Bethesda Terrace and the hippos in the Safari Playground. The Bethesda Terrace work mostly consisted of extensive scanning for documentation, but the hippo project consisted of scanning the sculptures for the explicit purpose of restoration and extended into the fabrication of exact replicas of hippo sculptures that were found to be in especially poor condition. The amount of work that this entailed was extensive but the end result is absolutely worth it, and now the hippo sculptures can continue to add to the makeup and personality of the park.

    A project in the architectural division involved documenting a historical building in Anne Arundel County that was due to be demolished for reasons related to safety, as the building was vacant for a number of years and contained high amounts of asbestos and other harmful materials. The deliverable here was a bit nebulous, as the client wanted the building documented but did not have a specific use in mind for the 3D data that was obtained. Management was brainstorming things to do with the data that could add value to the final product and brought me into the conversation, where I was able to think about it a bit and see that the package that they give to clients at the end of a project contained all of the raw data gathered, as well as specific formats of 3D models based on what purpose they would be used for. I realized the presentational aspect was entirely absent, aside from a SketchFab link that would display the 3D model so you can interact with it. This isn’t nothing, but I felt that it stripped the context entirely and thought I might play around and see what I could come up with to bridge that gap. Over the last month and a half, I was able to put together a basic platform for the company to host and display their 3D data in a way that better suites their needs, while keeping that data entirely under their control. I concentrated on the context aspect, adding the ability to display extensive archival-grade metadata, annotations, and data overlays (like drone flight paths) as well as many other features that cover their wide array of work. It has been an incredibly fun experience and I have learned an absolute ton about displaying 3D data on the web, as well as what they have taught me about the data capture process. My hope is that this project can evolve into something more comprehensive and be a genuine addition to their offerings long-term.

    Below is a screenshot of a scan they did of the National Katyń Memorial in Baltimore City presented in the web viewer I assembled. I did research and included the history of the memorial, the history of the massacre that the memorial is dedicated to the victims of, as well as the history of the scan that was performed. Direct Dimensions was contracted by the National Katyń Memorial Foundation to scan the memorial and do area calculations of the bronze and gold leaf materials for cost estimation purposes for repair and preservation. For this project the 3D model was more of a side effect than anything else, but we were able to create interactive documentation that the foundation can use to raise awareness for the memorial and preserve the memorial as it is right now for future generations, with full historical context present.

 

Stories in Storage

Photo: The exterior of the Howard County Center for African American Culture building

    Last semester, fall of 2025, I was hired along with two other students for an intern position with the Howard County Center for African American Culture. The hiring process was long, but not complicated. I was initially denied the internship, but they reached out to me about a month and a half later and asked if they could interview me to see if I could join the team. It ended up being less of an interview and more of a meeting to ask me when I could start. 

There wasn't much information about what the internship would have me do except for the position description in the initial email. All it said was that there had been a flood in 2021 that meant they needed to rapidly remove the museum's collections out of the building, and that now they were looking to recatalogue everything. I would be taught how to handle, record, and catalogue museum collections, which was the exact area of museum studies that I was interested in learning more about. After the interview, I joined the other two interns for an onboarding meeting and found out that the work hadn't started yet. We met once in November to become acquainted with the museum space and learn more about the center, and then once in December to start learning the hands-on skills before the holidays. I learned quickly that since the center was largely run by volunteers, everything took a little longer than usual to get started. 

The Howard County Center for African American Culture has an abundance of fascinating artifacts, books, documents, music, and more, a large portion of which sat unorganized in their upstairs storage closets. My internship supervisor, Dr. Kyla Cools, introduced us to the space, the artifacts, accession numbers, and Past Perfect, the museum collection software that we would be using to record all of the items. In January, after winter break, we all returned to the center to begin working consistently. 

 

History in Three Dimensions

Jake Marino

 

 Photo: Direct Dimensions employee using LiDAR to capture the Three Soldiers Vietnam war memorial statue in Washington, D.C.

    This semester I am lucky enough to be interning at a company called Direct Dimensions located in Owings Mills, MD. The company was started by the owner Michael Raphael in the mid-1990s as a metrology company that specialized in digitizing measurements of real-world objects for use in applications like CAD software, and over the years they became one of the premiere companies in the field of 3D scanning. The level of capture they can process is measured in microns at the most advanced level, and they use this skillset for everything from capturing for visual reference to capturing for exact replication and restoration. They have departments focused on specific types of capture, but my position is in the cultural heritage section of the company that works with artwork and historical artifacts and places. They are known very well in this domain due to their high level of technical expertise, doing scanning work for the National Parks Service, the Smithsonian and many other museums all over the country to preserve significant artifacts and aid in restoration as well as digitize items for public display on the internet and information kiosks in the museums themselves.

    My position initially was working on messaging in the cultural heritage space. This came about in a conversation I had during my interview where I talked about how important I thought the work they do is, and over the course of the meeting I laid out some ideas I had regarding working with museums and online institutions like Wikipedia to make scans of important cultural items more accessible. I am still doing that work but the company is inherently technical, so they have allowed me to do some exploratory work on that side as well. I have been able to see what they do for their process, from scanning and taking pictures, to processing of the raw data, to creating and cleaning up models, to presentation and even fabrication. It is incredibly interesting and overall, just super cool from every direction. I’m excited to see what I get to work on and to just be in this space as a preservationist, it’s a great opportunity in a field that most people probably don’t really think about but has very wide applications and huge future potential. 

Supporting Community History & Heritage

 

            My ultimate takeaway from my experiences interning for Todd’s Inheritance Historic Site is twofold. Firstly, learning how to conduct research, cataloging artifacts, and handle delicate items with very little support, knowledge, resources, or guidance is a tremendous endeavor. While the team of volunteers at Todd’s provided as much support as possible to my work, most of the project was carried out with very little oversight. This kind of experiences forces a researcher to pick up skills ad hoc and improvise when necessary; having the responsibility of handling and identifying family heirlooms so they can more accurately be presented for the public’s enjoyment is a serious task that must be treated with a solemn respect. Secondly, I have come to truly understand and appreciate the struggle involved in community-supported museums, archives, and historic sites like Todd’s Inheritance. The stewards of sites like Todd’s do not have access to vocational training on archival administration and material handling from accredited universities, expensive climate controlled environments, extensive archival records detailing the history of the property, or large financial investments from state resources or intellectual organizations. However, they make do with what they have access to and they do a tremendous job of respecting the property and materials’ histories while also creating an extremely accessible and welcoming environment for the general public to visit and learn about their community history and cultural heritage. Small, volunteer-run sites are invaluable to the preservation of community history as they ultimately will always have the best interest in their preservation since they have virtually no ulterior motives. I look forward to continuing my work collecting, itemizing, cataloging the historic items housed at Todd’s as a volunteer and supporting this small slice of preserved history.

Todd’s Inheritance also provides demonstrations, re-enactments, and lectures that provide opportunities for community interaction with the history, as well as improvement of accessibility to the general public. This photo shows the volunteers presenting a demonstration on Defenders’ Day to commemorate the Battle of North Point and the siege of Baltimore in 1814.

Bare Bones and Unknowns

 

            Given the extreme lack of support provided to the volunteers working to preserve and maintain the property and all the artifacts contained within, the work I was conducting proved to be quite challenging. The state government provides little financial support or vocational training in historic preservation, so they rely heavily on community volunteer work and visitor donations. Due to these restrictions, there has been virtually no organized collection or catalog to itemize and record all the artifacts that they are in possession of. This was the primary challenge in my work as they could only provide limited records or understanding of the objects I was cataloging, which is no fault of their own since they are all undertaking this herculean effort purely out of their generosity and their passion for cultural heritage. Many objects either had production line stamps detailing the maker and year of creation or that information was already known by the volunteers through the aid of the surviving Todd family members. However, some items required background research to ascertain the approximate era/year of origin and who the maker was. This involved examining every possible surface, texture, or material of an object for tiny details, and some of these objects were very large and heavy pieces of furniture. For example, one item that required this approach was a Sentinel Analog Wall Clock with no observable significant details and relatively little knowledge provided by the volunteers; I was able to identify it as a Sentinel series produced by Sessions Clock Co. in 1911 through following the details I was able to observe. Additionally, some of these objects were in very poor condition, due to wear over years of use or mishandling, which hampered efforts in identifying them from deterioration of details and weakened their structural integrity.

Three Hundred Years On The Patapsco Neck

            During the summer of 2025 I was given the wonderful opportunity to intern at a very small historic site in an isolated corner of Baltimore County, Maryland. I worked as a paid intern at Todd’s Inheritance Historic Site which is a colonial-era farmstead located at the very end of North Point Peninsula near Fort Howard. This area has a rich history rooted in the War of 1812 and specifically the siege of Baltimore and Fort McHenry. The three-story farmhouse was originally rebuilt in the 1820s after being burned down by the British invasion in 1814, but the area was first settled by the Todd family in 1664. The property was held in an unbroken line of succession for over three hundred years until in 1975 it was sold off and fell into serious disrepair. In 1997, the house was saved from sale and possible destruction by a coalition of community members dedicated to preserving the historic significance and cultural heritage of the property, and in 2001 the house was awarded a Historic Site designation by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources and kept under the stewardship of a group of dedicated community volunteers. Over my three months of work, I collaborated closely with these volunteers to identify, organize, catalog, and digitize over 200 various items on display in the house spread across four different rooms. This detailed work involved categorizing the items, determining their provenance, their year/era of origin, the materials they consist of, as well as the size dimensions of each item and photographic documentation. Many items originated from the Todd family heirlooms and thus had to handled with utmost care and respect as a member of the Todd family still resides locally and is heavily involved in the project of historic preservation and documentation.