Day 20: Wrap-It-Up

Well, the past months have been challenging to say the least. Balancing a full-time job with learning brand new skills at what amounted to a new part-time job was both amazing and exhausting. Keeping two organizational calendars straight at the same time is no small task and I have a new respect for those who do consulting work as they need to balance multiple calendars and schedules at once.

But honestly, I would not have traded my time here for anything in the world... well except for a bungalow on a Caribbean beach.

The people here at Cold Spring Harbor are wonderful, smart and talented people who did not hesitate to both challenge and inspire me. These warm professional archivists and librarians welcomed me and invited me out to lunch on a daily basis. I really felt like I was a part of the organization. Not just a gofer (meaning "go for" this). All projects were explained and put into context according to how and why they were important.

Each of my 4 learning objectives were met and exceeded during this internship:

• 1d: Students will use effective communication skills applicable for specific audiences and user groups. (Assessed through pre-internship activities, such as finding an appropriate site, developing a learning contract in partnership with the site supervisor, choosing appropriate student learning objectives, etc.)
•  2a: Students will use professional standards to organize, manage, preserve, evaluate and deliver information resources in a variety of formats 
•  2b: Students will apply systems for organizing and structuring information and knowledge, such as cataloging, classification and other metadata formation standards  
• 4a: Students put theory into practice interning in a library, archives, school, museum or other type of information organization. Assessed through internship activities and a reflective essay.

The internship was divided into four portions that ran concurrently or semi-concurrently:

• Part 1: Archival Work – processing of an untouched collection. Create a Processing Plan, Finding Aid and Inventory for the Clarence G. Campbell Collection. 
• Part 2: Digitization of Archival Photos – Photograph, crop, label and upload digital images to CSHL digital Collection.    
• Part 3: Library Reference – Research and find sources of information on Legal professionals, Journalists, and Ethicists involved with the Human Genome Project (related to follow-up work on a NLMS grant).
• Part 4: Digital Archiving and Records Management – using ArchivesSpace and the Clarence G. Campbell Collection as an example, create a EAD finding aid and then create supporting documentation on how to translate traditional finding aid terminology to ArchivesSpace terminology.

 Now it is time to enter the wonderful world of Archives and Special Collections!