Week 10: Final week

Wednesday 8/8
In the morning, I checked sites that I had sent to Pat the site Master last Friday. I only had to change one of the sites since I have been getting fairly good at finding sites with very little information. Many of the specimens I entered into the database were donated from New York historical society members. Most of the donors were not in the database so I had to create a simple parties records in order to associate them with the specimens. There were also two odd entries in the ledger. One was a plaster caster of a Neanderthal skull, which I thought was odd and did not fit with the rest of the non-paleolithic specimens in the ledger. The other was a plaster cast skull of remains from Bolivia. Also odd but less so than the Neanderthal skull. I completed about 30 records for the day.
At the end of the day, there was a small party at the CRC for the last week of the summer interns. We had cake and ice cream, which was delicious.

Thursday 8/9
On Thursday, I completed about 33 records. I also finished entering the regular, organized part of the ledger, which went up to number 717. My supervisors also took me and another intern in Collections Information out to lunch at IHOP as an appreciation for all of our hard work. I finished up the afternoon by going through the entered ledger records for editing.

Friday 8/10
On Friday, I put together all of my notes and documentation, a bone guide for the bone type abbreviations, and updated instructions for the ledger. I sent them to my supervisor so that she would have the information for future reference and for who ever else will be working on it after me.
I also started and finished the unorganized portion of the ledger. I called numbers 718 to 913 the "scribble pages." These pages it were an organized mess of writing on pieces of paper, which noted newer and/or possible acquisitions to the physical anthropology collection between the years of 1920-1930. These specimens were described in depth as the other part of ledger. Also most were from the same place and locality or missing due to unreceived specimens. For those reasons and a little help from the "ditto" function of Emu, I was able to get through the last section fairly quickly.

Well, this concludes my time as an intern at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time working at the museum, experiencing museum life and events, and meeting a variety of people from all over the United States and even some from other countries such as the United Kingdom. I have also gained valuable experience working in Collections Information and getting to know how to use the KE-EMu collections database system in a large museum.

Week 9: The Week of Tours

Wednesday 8/1
In the morning, I updated records with the sites that I had sent to Pat the Site Master last Friday and organized my notes to give to Kara on my last day, which is next week. Around 10:30am, Jill had arranged for all of the NMAI interns to go on a tour of the Museum Support Center (MSC) facility. The MSC houses the offices and the collections of the Smithsonian museums, the majority of them being from the Natural History Museum. The MSC facility is divided into 5 pods or storage areas and the collections are moved around according to available space.

The tour was great. We were taken to the open storage area where the large objects are kept such as boats, canoes, a cast of a colossal Olmec head, gemstones, and more. The group was also taken to the anthropology collections processing area, catalog room and cabinet storage area. I saw feather textiles from Peru, Eskimo and Aleutian fur and seal skin coats, samurai armor, Oldowan chopper, Acheulean handaxe, Northwest coast wood carving, and so much more. Lastly, upon request, we were taken to see the nitrogen storage area where they process and keep meteorites! Everything was tightly stored so we didn't get to see much of the actual meteors. After lunch, I finished up the day by completing about 30 records from the ledger.

Thursday 8/2
In the morning, I headed straight out to the Library of Congress for one of the Smithsonian intern tours. First we watched an introductory film and then the tour guide came to take us around. We were in the Jefferson Building, which is the main building of the library and the first one built. It is Congress' library and also the national library of the United States. It is the largest library in the world by shelves and number of books.

The library was originally housed in the Capital Building in the 1800s until the building and the book collection was burned in the War of 1812. Thomas Jefferson then donated his entire library in order to help restore the national library's collection. After the Civil War, a separate building was created to help store the increasing number of books coming into its collection. The library receives the majority of its collection through copyright provisions, which states at least two copies must be given to the library in order to receive rights to any piece of material such as books, poems, music, newspapers, etc.

Great Hall

On the tour, we were told the history of the library, an explanation of the internal architecture and decoration, and shown the main reading room. The group was also shown and told about the history of two famous books exhibited in the library. The Bible of Mains and the Gutenburg Bible. These two books were exhibited across from each other to give a contrast in the advancements in book manufacture. The Bible of Mains was hand written by a monk in Germany, which took about 15 months to copy one. On the other hand, the Gutenburg Bible was copied with the use of a movable type and took one day to make roughly 100 copies. It was the first major book produced on a printing press around the world. These two books show a movement into a major revolution in the way books were copied and produced around the world.

Main Reading Room (Courtesy of Library of Congress)

After the tour I stayed around to look at a few of the exhibit areas also in the library. I went to the Exploring the Americas and Books that Shaped America exhibits. Library of Congress Exhibits. For the rest of the afternoon on Thursday, I completed 20 records from the ledger.

Minerva of Peace glass mosaic

Friday 8/3

I did the usual record entering, sent the last sites e-mail to Pat the Site master, and grouped the completed records for the week. I am now up to record number 650!