A Summer In Washington

A Summer in Our Nation's Capital
I began this post a couple of weeks into June. I have since begun several other posts that have, like this one, never gone live. I had incredibly good intentions to blog every couple of weeks. While this obviously has not happened, it's the thought that counts. Right?

Okay, so maybe imagined blog posts don't really count for much.

This post will just have to count for what would have been a summer of very fascinating posts that you will now just have to imagine, as I did.

The summer is now almost over. I have only one day left in my summer internship, which it feels like I just begun. Needless to say, the summer has flown by. I have been blessed to live with some of my favourite people in the world - Stacie and Nat McConnell. As I took on an unpaid internship, I was so thankful to have such wonderful friends to open their home to me.


When I began applying for internships way back in January, I never expected that I would be spending the summer at an internationally-acclaimed museum in our nation's capital.



United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Nevertheless, for one more day I am a government employee as an intern in the collections branch at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Since June 1, I have assisted with a variety of collection-related tasks.

My duty station is in Maryland, at the museum's offsite collections storage facility. Over 97% of the museum's collections are in the offsite facility, whose security and secrecy rivals the FBI (though, if an FBI agent comes to talk about art crime, he will also inform you of all of the ways a criminal could blow up the building). The other three percent are in downtown Washington, mostly on display in the permanent exhibit.


My main project for the summer involved looking at collection's incoming files. When we receive a collection, we begin a file that includes a custody receipt for the objects, any emails about the collection, movement notes, etc. This file eventually becomes a permanent accession file, which will house any information regarding the accessioning of the collection. Accessioning is the legal transfer of ownership of an object from a donor to a museum.


The Ever-Important Deed of Gift
We have a large number of collections that have not been accessioned, and my job was to look through the accession files and the database to find out why. I then added an entry for each collection to a spreadsheet and assigned it to a museum staff person to remedy the issue.

95% of these collections are lacking proper documentation. While some collections need purchase receipts or copies of a donor's will, the majority need a deed of gift. This is a legal document that enumerates the extent of the collection and transfers ownership of it to the museum. Without this signed document, the museum cannot accession a collection. As some of these collections have been at the museum since the early nineties, getting signatures from all of these donors will not be a fun task.


Intern Miscellanea
My supervisor is Heather Kajic, the Chief of Collections Management, and she is wonderful supervisor. Heather has ensured that I will leave my internship with a wealth of knowledge about the good and bad of collections management. Therefore, a couple of days each week were spent doing a variety of tasks unrelated to my project. I dusted. I condition reported. I made boxes. I accessioned. I went on field trips. I rehoused archival material. I pulled requested objects. I updated the database. I cut sticky notes. I vacuumed carts. I vacuumed objects. I lifted heavy boxes.

I learned.

Most importantly, I am ending my internship having gained a wealth of knowledge and experience. And ultimately, isn't that what an internship is all about?

Was it perfect? Of course not. I certainly wish all internships were paid. And I now have an insider's knowledge of the issues that this institution faces. But what I gained from this summer is invaluable. I have a better understanding of my profession and I am better equipped to enter my field when I graduate in a year.

This has been a summer well-spent.