Internship at the Archives of the Holy Trinity Ukrainian Catholic Church #1

    Hello! My name is Danylo Leshchyshyn. This summer, I interned as an assistant archivist at the Holy Trinity Particular Ukrainian Catholic Church at 16631 New Hampshire Avenue in Montgomery County, MD. This church constitutes a parish of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic denomination in communion with the Pope of Rome. The parish of the Holy Trinity P.U.C. Church was one of many churches established by Ukrainian refugees who settled in North America after the Second World War. I grew up in this parish, so I was grateful for the opportunity to serve by helping manage the archives.  

Holy Trinity P.U.C. Church. Photo by Danylo Leshchyshyn.

    The chief goal of my internship was to organize and preserve the mountains of historical data in the parish archives. Organizing meant individually examining each document or item, and determining its origin. This process was made easier by simultaneously compiling an archival catalog, recording where each document was located. Each day I would encounter documents or other historical material which required immediate preservation work. To preserve the items, I learned how to properly de-crease dangerous folds, clean mold, and delicately remove staples and other sources of rust. The pandemic actually did not hinder my job too much, for my role allowed me to work independently in the archive room.

    The main joy of my internship was discovering all the hidden treasures waiting in the archives. During my time in the office, I had a wonderful opportunity to view hundreds of papers documenting the history of the parish, including many missives with beautiful letterhead and hallmarks from the Patriarch of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. There were also architectural plans related to the construction of the Holy Trinity P.U.C. Church in an authentic Carpathian Ukrainian style. In addition, I stumbled upon a rare collection of Ukrainian songs donated by a parishioner some time ago, consisting of over a hundred unique vinyl records.

Ground-level plans of the Holy Trinity PUC Church, by architect Larysa Kurylas.

    While this might not be an ideal place for most UMBC History students to intern, since it requires a strong grasp of the Ukrainian language, it proved a perfect opportunity for me to conduct quiet research and give back to my parish community.

Internship with Catoctin Furnace Historical Society #2

Due to COVID-19 my internship work has become more complicated. Back in March before everything got shut down I had made plans to work with my bosses to collect documents to help me write descriptions on their photographs. I was also supposed to help them by volunteering with their stand in some upcoming festivals. Of course our museum is also closed for the time being. They no longer became an option for us due to the pandemic. So we began to look for things I could do to help that did not have me traveling. So we decided to have me fully focus my time to work on their book with Arcadia Publishing.


After a lot of debate and some phone calls we decided the best way I can help them during this time is working with the digital photos they have to get them ready for the book. So I bought myself an external hard drive to download the files onto. I set up weekly phone calls with my bosses to discuss what they would like me to be working on. We would have me create captions for each photo that I have on file. The first thing I have to do to get ready to create this book is to organize. I have been looking through each photo and categorizing them by location and time the picture is taken. Because these are digital copies it is a bit difficult to organize them neatly without any paper documents to help. My bosses have been very considerate and willing to help during this time period.

Internship with Lost Towns Project #2

A lot has happened since my last blog post. I started to help sort one of the collections and
checking to make sure their information was correct in the system and then bag them. I
done more artifact cleaning too. We were just starting to do archaeology days for the local
middle and high schools. The first (and last) day I worked with the dig site part of the
learning day. I helped prepare the sites for digging in the in the morning, lining them with
nails, string, and removing the topsoil (leaves and grass). The rest of the day I spent
digging and later I learned how to record findings and summarize the dig site. Our site in
particular had a dark rectangular dirt spot within the site. I was told this could be a fence
post. Overall, it was a lot of fun working with the kids. However, due to the recent
pandemic, my internship was shut down. This didn’t worry me too much, but I was still
thinking “What now? How am I going to finish the internship?” 

A couple of weeks after shutting down, the archaeology lab set up some remote options to gain
hours. The one I've been working on is the transcription project for John Sellman’s diary. John
Sellmen was a farmer in Maryland in the 1800s. We are supposed to work through ten pages at a
time. I am currently working on pages 101-110. Its a lot of fun, although it is difficult. This project
actually connects well to one of my other classes because I had to do deed traces (some of which
were so old they were written out like this journal). The pages I am transcribing span from the end
of June 1828 to July 22 1829. There is a lot of repeating information like cutting oats or wheat and
corn, ploughing the fields, etc. Although, there have been changes in the language over time.
For example, through the first couple of months the writer would write “same as above” if they did
the same thing as yesterday. However, later “same as above” is replaced with “Ditto.”

Internship at the Priddy Library (What I have learned)

Working with the Priddy Library and Irene Munster has been amazing. I have learned many things since I started the internship in September. I have learned how to work with others, deal with complicated technical issues, online file organization, and using Omeka. Each internship has its challenges, and the following were mine. As part of my non-project tasks, I dealt with cleaning up the libguides and Omeka. Theses tasks taught me how to deal with technical problems, looking outside the box, and reaching out to others for help. For example, through Omeka, I not only learned how to use a new program, but also how to others about my problems and work as a team to solve the issues at hand, all of which led to a solution. I tend to like working by myself, and through Omeka, I have learned that it is okay to reach out and you can not always do things alone. I also realized that it is okay for things to take time, and that not everything has to be done at once. Working with Omeka and cleaning up the libguides helped me understand that being slow is okay as long as your work is of quality.

The project that I have been working on during my internship is the women's suffrage project. This project has taught me how to collaborate with others and patience. The women's suffrage project involves a few people, and I have learned to reach out to programs/museums asking for help and advice. For example, I reached out to the National Museum of African American History and Culture for assistance in finding photos on African American women during the 1920s. I have also contacted Ashleigh Coren, the Women's History Content and Interpretation Curator at the Smithsonian. Contacting experts has put me out of my comfort zone, but I am glad that it has because otherwise, I would avoid doing it because it causes anxiety. By doing this type of research, I have come to realize that my fears are just fears and that the worst thing that could happen is someone not responding to my emails. Talking to others has allowed me to find useful pictures for the project and build relationships with organizations outside of the Priddy Library. The women's suffrage project has also taught me not wanting instant gratification. I have an issue with taking things slow, and I work at a fast but effective pace. Due to COVID-19, things have been put on hold. I am forced to work slower and wait on others until they are able to accomplish their tasks. Everyone is very busy, and sometimes things have to wait. In the meantime, I was able to improve my organizational skills in filing the project's files in order to make it easier to understand, and I cleaned up unnecessary items such as pictures and photos. Working at the Priddy Library with Irene Munster and others has been a great experience. I am thankful for Irene's guidance which introduced me to valuable skills that I plan to put in good use in my future job.

1.1 Organized files on relevant information on women's suffrage

1.2 Washington D.C. file which shows a highlighted three-sentence summary of one woman who was involved in the movement.

An internship with UMBC Special Collections: the Lawrence Watt – Evans Project

         An unfortunate update for the Albin O. Kuhn internship with Special Collections. With the school and library shut down, I am not permitted to rejoin my colleagues and continue with the Lawrence Watt-Evans collection. While preparations are being made to hopefully give interns a change to help with their projects from home, for now, I will not be able to continue with the collection. So far, I had almost finished Series II of his collection which included most of his convention materials including items either from conventions where he was asked to run a panel, appear as a special guest, or regular conventions he attended on his own time. Some conventions had much more materials from over the years – Balticon and Norseacon were the two biggest and would have had boxes of their own – with others only having one or two pieces, usually just an informational packet or pamphlet. One of the very interesting things I found was actually accidentally mixed in with the convention items, but was a personal letter from one of the directors for a convention, handwriting a letter to Watt-Evans about how honored he would be to have him be on their panel since he read his books as a child.

            I couldn’t get past Series II before moving on, but this series meant organizing all the different conventions together and putting them in alphabetical order within their respective conventions. Then I went through each convention and put those in chronological order, and moved them into acid free folders, and put them all back in alphabetical order in their boxes. It sounds a bit boring, but it was actually very rewarding to put everything back in its place, and I got to read some amazing convention materials. In my previous post, I also mentioned how when I thought I was done, we found another whole box of materials I had to sort in with the already organized materials. All it took was about 5 minutes into that box to help me realize how crucial it is to properly label and store all materials so when others come behind to organize it, they have the entire collection and don’t have to spend more time merging the two together. Organization is key in libraries and special collections, especially when working with larger collections.

            I would have loved to move onto the next series, since I was so close, because the next series was the proper format used by libraries and special collections for labeling and storing their materials. Particularly exciting to me was the opportunity to use our UMBC Special Collections numbering system. We used a more traditional manuscript collection database and applied archival standards like DACS (Describing Archives a Content Standard). This is used by major historical institutes across the country, so I was excited to be able to take something to a new job in the future and already have some background information about specialized organization. Though the opportunity did not arise, after arranging a collection, I would have helped making a finding aid, then passing it on to catalogers who make a collection level record using MARC and moving into Worldcat and our Library catalog. I was also looking forward to looking at the included aspects of the Watt-Evans project, such as his personal correspondences, writing drafts, manuscripts, and more! I had planned to read a few of his books to better understand his drafts and pre-published materials so that I could fully grasp the meaning of his writing items. I am upset that I will not get to continue and finish this project, but there was nothing about it so far that I did not like. It was fun, taught me the importance of proper organization and delegation of time to sorting and dating materials, as well as storing key project pieces in an orderly and easily accessed fashion.

A library internship: UMBC Special Collections project on Lawrence Watt – Evans

Hello all! My name is Samantha Rogers and I am a junior History Major here at UMBC. For my first history related internship, I was accepted to work in the Special Collections department of the Albin O. Kuhn Library located past the gallery on the ground floor. I was told I would be working on the Lawrence Watt – Evans collection. Watt-Evans is a science fiction writer whose correspondences, manuscripts, convention materials, and personal notes the library has collected over the years. I was informed that the series needed to be organized, first alphabetically then chronologically, before moving it to proper holding and storage units. However, they first trained me as a front desk associate, which was extremely beneficial for I learned the LoC (Library of Congress) system for archives and databases, which most other universities, institutions, and museums use. Seeing how I would like to enter the museum field, this should prove useful to me in the future.

Starting in January, I have been working with the convention material first, organizing it and refiling it into a new system for storage. I believed I was done with this series until my supervisor and I discovered that a past intern had misplaced two large boxes, so I had to practically start over (since folders were numbered) to integrate the missing material. This was one of the first lessons learned in properly labeling and storing the collection; a lesson I will take into further work. While I am still working on this particular project, I hope to be done and continue into personal notes and manuscripts within the following weeks.

From this internship, I hope to learn more about the archival system used by libraries and museums alike, as well as gain insight into databases and collection agencies utilized by both public and private owners in collection series such as the Watt-Evans papers. We are also looking forward to (hopefully) having Mr. Evans come and speak at UMBC!

All the darker boxes are the unorganized materials before I began working on it, the next is the beginning of my relabeling and reorganizing the papers. Not pictured is the mess I had to correct from the previous intern and the missing white boxes

Internship AOK Special Collections Post #2

For this second blog post I will be focusing on my main project with the AOK Special Collections at UMBC. The collection holds millions of photographs from the Baltimore sun and other newspapers in the area, however, these collections take a lot of time to process, prepare, and store correctly. The main job I have been working on is collecting the large boxes of files from the palates they were delivered on and rehouse the folders into smaller, more workable boxes. While this is only one step in the larger process of taking care of the collection and the photographs it holds, I have noticed a few interesting points that I will be discussing below. In a normal semester this is where the blog post would likely end, however, given the extreme circumstances that have befallen the university and the country this year I will briefly talk about the future of the internship at the end of the post.  

The first point I want to discuss might seem obvious, but it is important to talk about nonetheless. That is, funding is the greatest factor in getting work done at a collection. Again this seems like a no-brainer. Of course an institution needs funding to work. However, this extends to more places than one might initially guess. As previously mentioned the task I am working on entails rehousing files into smaller boxes. However, the availability of these boxes can be an extremely limiting factor in how much work can be done. The collections had over a hundred boxes on hand when I started and those were quickly used up. This led to my last post where I talked about the other project I worked on while more boxes were ordered, however, even then the project will likely need yet another order or two before there are enough boxes to rehouse all of the photographs on the palettes. 

This leads to the second point, which is that all of those boxes take up a ton of space. Once again this seems like an obvious point, however, it is easy to underestimate just how much space can be taken up in a relatively short amount of time by a project like this. With only around a quarter of the boxes rehoused there are already about one and a half full storage shelves taken up by the files. This will only increase as the project progresses.

The last point is time. These boxes are heavy and it is a time consuming process to re-house them, reshelve them, and record what is in each box. Unfortunately, this is only complicated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the campus shutdown. As it sits right now, my intention is to finish the rest of my hours and my last blog post over the summer, but even that is uncertain. We do not have a definite date for the reopening of the campus or even the end of the recently announced stay-at-home order in Maryland. When I do return I will be able to finish this project, which is not that bad for the nature of the work I am doing. However, many are not that lucky and more time sensitive projects have been thrown into limbo. This will be my last post until campus reopens and until then I, like many others, will be trying to get used to working and living from home.