For the remainder of the internship, I have decided to do weekly blog entries that captures the main points of the entire week. Unless something really amazing happens then I will post right away!
Tuesday 6/12
In the morning I restarted the Events entry that I was trying to start last Friday but failed. I was trying to put in sections of the exhibit but was not able to add them to the "Look up List" in EMu. Look up Lists are set list of words/terms, which can be added to if needed, and used for certain fields. Kara helped me create the exhibit sections for the event and all was well again. I was able to finish the entry without any other problems.
After lunch, I was given my next temporary task: a one inch binder full of old measurements to enter into EMu. The measurements were done prior to the Museum of the American Indian's big collection move from NY to DC in 1993. All of the measurements were done in 3-dimensions instead of 2-dimensions so I had ignore the height and go with the width and the depth. Most of the objects I was entering measurement for were textiles so I'm not sure why they were measured in 3-D. It's a mystery! Luckily the majority of the objects had catalog numbers that I could easily find in the database. For the rest of the day, I looked up the catalog number of the objects in the notebook and put in measurements where necessary.
Wednesday and Thursday 6/13-6/14
For the next two day I was working on the measurement notebook. Each section of the notebook was divided by "storage vault" name from the old MAI storage facility. I started working on the "Boatroom Vault." This section contained mostly woven plant/natural textiles such mats, rain capes, etc. from various cultures. The "Boatroom" was short and I finished in a few hours. The next section was the "South American Vault." This section contained mostly garment textiles such as shirts, whole and parts. There were also some pants, ceremonial outfits, and coconut fiber cloths just to name a few.
A large amount of the shirts and shirt parts were collected from the Kuna people indigenous to Panama and Colombia. The shirts are called molas and are the traditional garment worn by women. The shirts are made by sewing panels of fabric together. There were so many shirts and panels! They were fascinating to look at, very colorful and intricately made. Most had traditional designs and some had contemporary animal motifs. As I was going through the catalog and looking at the shirts, I realized I actually have a shirt panel made by the Kuna from Panama! I was fascinated to have discovered that I have something similar to what was in the museum. I almost feel like a collector!
Check out the links to learn more about molas and see the one that I have:
About Molas
More about Molas
My Kuna mola picture
At the end of the day on Thursday, I finally got the notebook to start my project!
Friday 6/15
Today was the day for a plethora of free coffee, doughnuts, and bagels! yum!
In the morning, I went to the beginning of a digitization mini-conference at NMAI then left for the intern/staff meet and greet, which was up on the next floor.
The mini-conference was called 15 Years Digitizing the Smithsonian: Projects Supported by the CIS IRM Pool. The CIS IRM Pool (Collections Information System - Integrated Resource Management) supports collections management and outreach by funding digitization efforts at the Smithsonian. The conference was put together by my supervisor Kara and I got to hear about different digitization projects from many of the Smithsonian museums such as the Natural History Museum, Air and Space and Freer/Sackler (Asian Collection). I also learned about Digital Asset Management Systems or DAMS and archival systems such as Archivist Toolkit, DACS and EAD.
The intern/staff meet and greet was nice. I got in late so not many people were left but I did get to hear a native drum song, which welcomed the interns to the museum. Then I talked to a few people and all of the interns had pictures taken.
Afterwards, I went back to mini-conference with fellow interns Kelly, who I work with in collections information, and Elliot, who works in archives to finish up the afternoon.
After lunch, I went back to the CRC to get a head start on Phase I of my project!
Next week: the exciting project details!
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