HOLLY CROFT, GEORGIA COLLEGE
Proposal Type
Roundtable
Seeking
- Seeking Additional Presenters
- Seeking Specific Expertise
- Seeking General Feedback and Interest
Related Topics
- Archives
- Museums/Exhibits
- Teaching and Training
Abstract
In Fall 2019, four undergraduate history majors on the public history track will be placed in an internship course in Special Collections to digitize photographs from a local community, add what metadata is known to the photographs, and then place these digital photos in online galleries. Once the galleries go live, the community will be invited to add additional metadata to the photos.
For three of the four students, this course is their first exposure to Special Collections, and all four hope to pursue graduate work in public history. With this understanding, the supervising archivist devised a seminar component to the internship so the students would learn the theory behind the archival processes they are undertaking.
Description
This abstract is currently very specific to my own situation, but I’m hoping others either have or are including a theoretical component their internships elsewhere. I’m looking to broaden this proposal topic by adding other public historians (archivists, curators, or others!) who have done something similar. Was it a success, or was it a disaster? Do you have suggestions for how to make it better for next time? Obviously, this course is still in the future for me, but we’ll be well into a new semester by the time NCPH takes place, so I’ll be aware of how this experiment went by then.
In addition to what I wrote above, here is a bit more explanation of how this seminar component idea was hatched:
The four students were required to come and introduce themselves after signing up for the course by the professor of record. One of them asked me what I did, which made me realize only the one who had been in a different course I teach and who had been to Special Collections several times for assignments for that class was aware of what archivists actually do. For some of them, this will be their only exposure to an archive before graduating. As all four student intend to pursue some avenue of public history – and in particular because they intend to go to graduate school for a public history masters degree – this is a golden opportunity to give them a solid understanding of the hows and whys of archives and our digital collections.
If you have a direct offer of assistance, sensitive criticism, or wish to pass along someone’s contact information confidentially, please get in contact directly: Holly Croft, [email protected]
All feedback and offers of assistance should be submitted by July 1, 2019. If you have general ideas or feedback to share, please feel free to use the comments feature below.
Holly – I think this has potential! The Public History program at IUPUI places all PH graduates in paid internships with PH organizations, many of which are archives/special collections. I worked at the Indianapolis Museum of Art with Sami Norling and at the Indiana Historical Society under the late Wilma Moore. Sami has been active in NCPH, so she or the current archivist at the IMA may be interested in presenting alongside you. They both have worked with PH students. Additionally, I like the aspect of how to teach students more about what archivists actually do. When I lead instruction I always open it with “what do you think an archivist does?” and it’s so interesting to hear the responses or the lack of responses! I then spend a good amount of time just describing all the different jobs/roles before we move on to the fun “show and tell” of the material. If you want to broaden your proposal, perhaps focus it on how archives/special collections can bring a wider understanding of our profession and our day-to-day jobs not just for students but for faculty (especially non-history) and the community at large.