Viola da Gambas, Early Modern Salons, and Graphic Design

 

I found my internship with Dr. Johnson and the MEMS program extremely rewarding, educational, and most of all – fun. Although I have worked previously in marketing, I have been laser-focused on pursuing a career in history for the past three years and forgot how much I enjoyed it. With this internship, I was able to combine my passion for history with my (rusty) marketing experience and had the added bonus of working under one of my favorite professors at UMBC. Although I do not think that I will pursue a career in marketing, being able to create posts and manage social media platforms is an increasingly important skill. While I still think my “graphic design” skills could use (a lot) of polishing, the practice and experience I gained this semester is invaluable.

For me, the peak of this internship was getting the chance to meet with other students with similar academic interests and help advertise MEMS’ end-of-semester event, The “Early Modern Salon.” Through working with Dr. Johnson and helping with the salon, I was given the opportunity to learn to play the Viola da Gamba – a baroque era consort instrument that is not frequently played in modern ensembles. While I will most definitely not be joining the New York Philharmonic Orchestra any time in the near (or distant) future, learning how to play the gamba and about its history was a rare and enriching opportunity. Ultimately, by the end of my internship, I feel like the goal of expanding MEMS’ virtual presence was achieved and hopefully, MEMS will continue to grab the attention of UMBC students like it did for me!

Digging Through the Archives

 

One of my favorite projects, and certainly the most challenging project, I undertook was creating a MEMS research guide. After visiting UMBC’s Special Collections archive in the library, Dr. Johnson and I discovered that there were hundreds of medieval and early modern books available for student research. After discussing the best way to advertise the collection, we decided that a research guide – or “brochure” that sorts the available books by date, subject, and location – could be useful for students. However, as the Special Collections is a closed collection, where a call number and title are required for access, creating a list of books for the research guide proved increasingly difficult. While the library luckily has an online database that lists the books in the collection, there were over three hundred MEMS-approved books to sort through (many of which were not in English) – and I quickly realized this would be more difficult than initially anticipated.

The ultimate goal of the project was to help students, who may have been unfamiliar with an archive or in a time crunch, find primary sources for their research without having to comb through the online database. Yet, with the extensive collection UMBC has to offer, finding a way to organize the research guide became a challenge. The first step was to make a list of all the books available, then I sorted them according to academic subject and publication date. Although my initial plan was to create a single-page handout (in brochure format) for every MEMS book in the collection, once I compiled the list, I realized there was no way to fit everything without the guide being over five pages long. Eventually, after several days trying to redesign and reorganize my initial draft, I found that creating several different brochures, organized by subject matter, would be the only way to fit in all the information on a single handout. Although the project took much longer than expected, it was surprisingly rewarding! By the end of the semester, I not only used the brochure for my own research project, but we were also able to send it out to other students to help with their research as well.

Working with UMBCs Medieval and Early Modern Studies Program

 

During the Spring 2023 semester, I was given the opportunity to be an intern for the Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS) program under Dr. Lindsay Johnson. At UMBC, the MEMS program offers classes that encompass a chronology from late antiquity to the eighteen century and stretch beyond the borders of Europe. As a history major interested in the early modern era, this internship immediately felt like a perfect fit! Although the MEMS program is interdisciplinary, drawing on a variety of humanities courses, as of January 2023, there were only a few students enrolled in the minor. Dr. Johnson and my goal for this internship was two-fold; we sought to spread awareness about the benefits of a MEMS minor, which included eligibility for a MEMS fellowship and opportunities to join in fun off-campus events, while also building a community of like-minded students interested in medieval and early modern studies. Therefore, my primary role as an intern centered around marketing and student outreach.

My first task was to help bolster the program’s online presence by creating and managing MEMS social media pages on Instagram and Facebook. By developing advertisements that detailed the minor’s requirements, available MEMS courses, and upcoming events, interested students could have an alternative, easily accessible, avenue to seek information about the program. While social media platforms became a useful tool in connecting and growing the MEMS community, we also sought additional ways to reach out to students. After coordinating with several MEMS faculty members, I was able to organize short in-class presentations in a variety of MEMS approved courses. By the end of the spring semester, I had the opportunity to visit several classes and speak directly to students about the program.

Final Thoughts and Ultimate Takeaways

A screenshot of UMBC Special Collections blog

 By: Kayla Brooks

After completing an internship placement, it is essential for any intern to reflect on their experience: what did you like most about your internship, and how could it have gone better? What valuable things did you learn or gain along the way that you can use in the future? Did you make the most of your time and achieve the goals you set at the beginning of your contract? Now that my internship in Special Collections has come to an end, I have a lot to reflect upon…

I think what I liked most about my internship in Special Collections (aside from the fact that I always like working there!) was seeing all the different kinds of projects my colleagues were producing for the 50th anniversary project, and being able to contribute to that whether it be through collaborative work or creating my own content. UMBC Special Collections houses a wide variety of interesting materials in our archives, so seeing them get put to use and shared on a broader scale through digital engagement and outreach was a really great project to be able to participate in.

Of course, my most favorite project to work on was my romance comic blog post! Going into the internship, I didn’t have any specific ideas in mind concerning what I wanted to do for self-produced content, so figuring it out along the way just by looking through what was in Special Collections and making it come to life was a highly rewarding experience. What helped the most was that I chose something that I was interested in so that it could be entertaining for me, but also have historical research merit as well. I also really enjoyed the process of making Instagram posts for our #PhotobookFriday series. Being able to pick from subgenres that appealed to me, such as the fashion photography book I used for my second post, and take pictures of these books in the reading room for all of our followers to see was something I looked forward to doing every week. 

In completing these projects, I feel as though I developed a lot of invaluable skills and experiences that I will take with me as I continue to pursue public history. First, it was very meaningful to work in a collaborative environment like Special Collections where my goals were supported. To me, an internship should be mutually beneficial, and from the perspective of an intern, provide skills, knowledge, experience, etc. that will help further advance education and career goals. Furthermore, the internship shouldn’t solely be about having another entry of work experience to put on a resume, but fostering positive relationships with peers and mentors in the field that will help you in your future endeavors. This internship helped me develop public-facing writing as well as social media management skills, which I think will be highly useful going forward. In addition to this, I was able to take into consideration very important factors in digital content production and public outreach such as accessibility, which is just one component of the larger mission I feel the public history discipline should be pursuing.

If I had the chance to do the internship over again knowing what I know now, I would definitely go in with clearer goals of what I wanted to do so that I could maximize my time and accomplish tasks more efficiently. Furthermore, I think it would have been great to post content that is more diversely representative of Special Collections materials. Contributing to the #PhotobookFriday series was really fun and I love the pictures I was able to take. But while photo books serve as a flagship feature of UMBC’s Special Collections archive, I think I could have done more to explore different types of materials and make content about them as well aside from my blog post. Overall, I wish I was able to commit more time to the internship in order to fully explore all of the functions of my position that I could have. Nonetheless, I am still satisfied with my work and am grateful for the opportunity that I was given to work in Special Collections again.