Week one was quite the blur for me seeing as it was the first week of my first ever internship. During this week Brianna and I learned how to log photo information into Omeka, and made significant strides when it came to processing the photos left in the smaller file cabinet. However, during this week I really feel like I was focusing more on completing the task rather than learning about the items.
This all seemed to change when week two came around. I feel like during week two I paid more attention to what was in my hands, rather than just logging it into the computer and putting it back in a folder. This was the week that I felt like I really started to remember and recognize famous faces of the people in Wilson’s life. This then lead to being able to write more accurate titles to the pieces that had very little information on them, and creating a mental timeline of when a picture was taken. This was also the week when Brianna and I realized that not everything in this photo collection was going to be smooth sailing. Her and I started to realize that most of the photos in the collection were either 1) not put into Omeka (easiest fix of them all), 2) not scanned into the computer, 3) completely messed up when it came to numbering, or 4) All of the above. When this was realized it was up to Brianna and I to work as a team and stay incredibly organized over the next week and a half to fix all of this. Lastly, this was also the week that I realized that I could use my knowledge of Art History when it came to putting in photos into Omeka. For example I ran across a lot of reproduced Jacob Riis and John Singer Sargent photos that had no information on them. From knowing this I managed to put in more accurate titles and descriptions into Omeka.
Week three was a lot of work but lead to the greatest amount of success! During this week Brianna and I managed to fix the entire photo collection that we were working on. Doing this required a lot of organizing photos into separate files, a lot of scanning, a lot of daily game plan creating, and a lot of talking out what we were doing. Also during this week Brianna and I managed to find some time and go downstairs to listen to “Coffee with the Curator”. During this the Curator talked about the stories of Oscar Dabney and Margarent Cline from the museum’s Soldiers’ Stories: World War I Through American Eyes exhibit. Afterwards we then got a moment to speak to the Curator and ask him a few questions about the presentation.
Week four was a little slow for me sadly. This was the week that I managed to catch a sinus infection from one of the kids that I work with at my other job, and was sadly out sick for a good amount of this week.
Week five was a whole different story. During this week I started to feel better and was sent out to work on the Institutional Photos (insert dramatic music here). So far there have been no number mishaps or issues of items not being scanned yet. Also during this week I managed to get the most work done yet; basically just making up for my lost time from last week. Currently I am about 1/2 of the way through the collection and going strong!
