Week 3: Road Trip

This week was pretty low-key due the American Alliance of Museums meeting in Baltimore. So this is going to be a short post and I will try to get some pictures in next week!

Monday 5/20
In the morning, I did the usual exhibit case cleaning throughout the Newseum and light check for the objects in the JFK exhibit. Then I helped Emma reinstall a newspaper in one of the News History Gallery (NHG) drawer cases. The newspaper had be taken out to repair the case drawer a few weeks earlier. Since the drawer was fixed, the newspaper could go back into the case. We carted all of the tools to the exhibit area. I watched Emma opened the case as she explained the secret method of keeping the drawer locked in place so it won't roll back as the newspaper is put back. I helped hold up the case top as she took off the old museum wax that was previously used to hold the newspaper in place, cleaned the area, replaced the wax with two way Velcro, and placed the newspaper back into the case. Afterwards we took on a few monthly and weekly cleaning tasks around the NHG such as dusting the Woolworth lunch counter, Cronkite studio camera, and the Bolles car.

In the afternoon I helped file a few documents into object accession files and double checked the credit line for three objects. Then I did the exhibit walk through and environmental checks. Finally to finish up the day I helped Emma prepare for our trip to the storage facility in Laurel, Maryland. We loaded objects to go out to the facility onto a cart, made a list of object accession numbers, and inventoried the number of objects and boxes on a travel spreadsheet.


Tuesday 5/21
In the morning, I was asked to helped other summer intern with morning cleaning so that we could leave on time for the storage facility. We split up the cleaning duties and got everything done within an hour. Emma, the other intern and I took the objects on the cart we put together on Tuesday down to the parking garage on a large freight elevator and loaded them onto the van. Then it was about an hour trip to get out to the Newseum Support Center in Laurel, Maryland. I forgot to bring a book so I just enjoyed the greenness of the scenery (not as exciting as a book). Once we arrived, Emma took us on a tour of the facility. My favorite part was going into the cool and cold storage area where they keep all the their film media and photos. It was definitely cold in there. For the rest of the day we put the objects and boxes in their appropriate locations in the facility, completed several object condition reports with pictures for newspapers, and placed them in a new storage location. Before we left the storage facility, I helped inventory the objects and boxes to be brought back to the Newseum on a new travel sheet. 

Wednesday 5/22
For Wednesday, I was assigned to do the exhibit cleaning and light check in the morning. Afterwards, I took a break and sorted the JFK message board and post-its. Then I renamed object photos taken for several condition reports. The photos included those that were taken at the storage facility the day before and from previously documented objects that had not been renamed. The last thing I did before I left for the day was the exhibit walk through and environmental checks. After lunch I headed back to my other job at the Archives. 

Week 2: Cleaning and Scrapbooks

Monday 5/13
I was assigned to do the morning cleaning and walk through of the exhibits...all by myself for the first time. I was a little nervous and indecisive on the best place to start. So I started on the largest gallery on the 5th floor, the News History, since the newspaper time line gets really gross from people touching the glass drawers. Plus it is always super dirty on Mondays since no one is here to clean the exhibit cases over the weekend. I had my hands full (literally!) for almost 2 hours. By the time I got to the concourse level exhibits there was already a ton of people in the museum, which was making it harder for me to clean the cases. Despite the people, I was determined to finish! Once I was done cleaning I went back to record the light meter readings in the JFK exhibit. After the morning tasks were done, I finally got a break at 10:30. Then I worked on the Cold War scrapbook project with another intern until lunch. We were able to finish four books from the years 1974 to 1978.

In the afternoon, Emma talked to me about weekly cleaning tasks (ugh more cleaning!), showed me the work chart and instructions, and the equipment used to clean. Most of the weekly cleaning tasks are for the larger stand-alone objects and exhibit cases that are too tall or are hard to reach for the daily cleaning.

She picked two weekly cleaning tasks for us to complete for the afternoon. First we went to the World News Gallery to dust a reporter truck and a road sign from Yugoslavia that had been ravaged by gunshots. Next we dusted the Bolles car (from Don Bolles who was a reporter for the Arizona Republic whose car was bombed while investigating a story about the mafia in Phoenix) in a small exhibit area connected to the News History Gallery. 

This one was tricky to clean since the car is placed in a small corner and one of the doors is left open to show the bomb damage and there is a laser sensor security strip right next to the open door. Somehow you have squeeze by a less than one foot space to get to the front of the car and not trip the alarm. Unfortunately, the first time was not successful but I was told that the security cameras should let security know that it is just us collections people cleaning and not visitors. To clean the large vehicles/cases, we used a a large static dusting brush with an extendable arm for those hard to reach places. Once that was done, I went back out to do the exhibit walk through and environment checks. Then I finished up the day by going through more Cold War scrapbooks and completed years 1977 to 1982. 

Tuesday 5/14
I was once again assigned morning cleaning. (I will have this down by the end of the internship!) This time I shared the morning cleaning tasks with another intern so it wasn't too bad. We split up the exhibit levels and cleaned the cases on those levels. I did the 6th floor, concourse, and 1st floor. I also checked the JFK message board, took down the post-its, sorted them, and refilled the post-it dispenser with new ones.

Then Emma and I complete two more weekly cleaning tasks. First we dusted the tops of the concourse exhibit cases, which include one case in the Berlin Wall exhibit and a few cases in the FBI gallery. Then we dusted the CONUS news reporting truck. For the rest of the day, I worked on the Cold War scrapbook finding aid. I completed all of the books from the years 1983 to 1991!

Wednesday 5/15
For the last day I was assigned to the morning cleaning and light check. This time I was by myself and decided to start on the bottom concourse level, work my up, and finish with the large News History Gallery. It only took about an hour and a half to finish since the cases weren't too dirty.
I also checked the JFK message board, took down the post-its, sorted them, and refilled the post-it dispenser with new ones.
Since this was a short day, I only had a small task to complete before I finished up with the walk through. Since I finished the scrapbook finding aid project, I had to go through all 39 entries for each book in their collections database and add a short sentence in the description about the finding aid's location. After I finished, I decided to start the walk through and light and environment checks before I left at 12, which ended my day (and week) at the Newseum.

Week 1: Let's jump right in

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For this summer, I will be interning at the Newseum in the Collections and Visual Resources Department with the Registrar, Maeve. I will be doing all kinds things such as exhibit cleaning and installation to condition reports and cataloging. Sounds like it will be an exciting summer!

**I am at the Newseum for 2 1/2 days out of the week. For the rest of the week I am at my regular job, which I am sure would not make an entertaining blog. So I will be posting weekly entries that will capture the main points for the week.**

Monday 5/6

News History Gallery

Upon arrival Maeve and I jumped right in to do the morning exhibit case cleaning. This entails doing a rough cleaning of the outside of all of the exhibit cases in the entire building!

She showed me her cleaning route through the museum and we went through all six floors in an hour and a half. We mostly just clean off any of the finger/face prints that we find and move on. So it goes fast. For the plexi galss cases we use a gel like cleaner and for the glass cases we use a special glass cleaner from Italy called Chiaro since most of the permanent glass cases were custom made in Italy.

After cleaning, we checked the light meter readings for three objects in the new JFK exhibit, which have to be checked twice everyday in the morning and afternoon. These specific objects are on loan and so have strict environment requirements that have to be met on a daily basis. The next task was to sort through the sticky notes on JFK message board in the exhibit. There are two boards. One board asks the question “Where were you when JFK was assassinated?” that is intended for those who were alive at that time. Sometimes people leave silly messages like "I was not born yet" or other variations that have to be taken down. The other board asks “Where were you when it happened?” that is intended for everyone else to post where they were when something tragic happened such as 9/11. Again, some people tend to leave silly and ridiculous messages like “I was riding my unicorn in space”, which have to be taken down. The good posts are sorted through and kept for future use. Some of the most ridiculous posts are put up on the “Wall of Shame.”

Arten Meter

Then we had a small get together to celebrate the leaving of the spring interns and the coming of the summer interns with delicious coffee cake. Then I was introduced to some of the people in the department and got my ID and schedule.

In the afternoon, I went back out in the museum with Emma, the museum tech, to do the exhibit/building walk through. This is done every morning after the case cleaning is finished. The person who is assigned to do the cleaning is also responsible for doing the light checks and walk through. The walk through consists of going through every exhibit and checking the environment inside of cases on the walk through list and the environment (outside of the cases) within the exhibit as a whole. There are also two meters, which monitors objects in the processing room, which have to be checked as well. By the end of this internship, I will hopefully be an expert at reading hygrothermographs and arten thermohygrometers.

For the rest of the day I was set loose to explore and become familiar with the museum set up (which can be really confusing at first) and all of the exhibits.

Tuesday 5/7

In the morning I was assigned to do the exhibit case cleaning, light readings, and walk through with one of the spring interns. In the afternoon, Emma trained me on how to start and complete object condition reports. We worked on two objects, an anti-civil rights license plate from Mississippi and a book (Upton Sinclaire's The Jungle) that the museum had purchased.For the first object, I watched her complete the condition report process such as describing the object’s surface and structural condition and took photographs for documentation. The second object we worked on together so that I could get a sense of what to look for when describing the object. I think the book was the hardest to describe since it had different elements (inside and outside). Later I was trained on how to use their cataloging database and completed the catalog for the two objects.

Wednesday 5/8

On Wednesdays I am only at the museum until 12. So for that time me and another intern worked on the Cold War cartoon scrapbook project. Basically the project entails creating a finding aids list of basic information for each book corresponding to the year from which the cartoons came. We have to go through each book looking for important people, events, places, and other important topics. For the morning we went through four scrapbooks corresponding to the years 1966 to 1968.