I didn't know what to expect coming into this internship; although I grew up in the area, my last visit to the Chrysler was on a high school field trip over five years ago, and I'd never visited the library before! So far, it's been great- even though it's only been a week, I've learned so much about the special challenges and opportunities faced by a library centered around a museum. There are a ton of unique collections housed here, from the Myers Collection (on which Sarah, one of the library archive interns, will share more soon) to the seemingly endless assortment of auction catalogues-detailing sales of everything from major Old Masters works to civil war photography to surprisingly expensive paperweights- that spans centuries.
The fun part about my internship is that each week focuses on a different aspect of librarianship, like preservation or outreach. This first week served as a general overview of the JOC Library and its functions. I spent the first few days getting my bearings (although I still get lost almost daily), observing the reference desk and cross-checking library donations with the online catalogue to check for any duplicates (Laura outlined the library's acquisition policy for me- the library only houses books that are relevant to objects owned by the museum-for example, because there are illuminated manuscripts either on display or in the archives, the library has shelves of books about manuscripts and illumination in general as well as any texts about the manuscripts owned by the Chrysler), shelving the books we had on display about the objects in the Tiffany Lamps and Life of Christ exhibits that just finished their run, and began working on a summer-long research project of my choice, which I'll write more about as I figure it out (I think I'll work on some aspect of illumination). Thursday introduced me to some of the most important traits required for a librarian- patience and organization. Organization because I spent the day sorting auction catalogues, some of which were a hundred years old; patience because even after several hours of categorizing and shelving, the job is still a work-in-progress.
Friday was, I think, my favorite experience so far. The library hosts its own exhibit in the reading room, and on Friday we changed it from the existing Civil War exhibit to Chelsea's planned rare children's books display. I got to work with documents that included a letter by Robert E. Lee, a flag fragment from the USS Cumberland, which sank in battle with the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia (formerly the USS Merrimack), personal letters from both Union and Confederate soldiers, and government documents.
That afternoon, Chelsea and I began work on the new exhibit, themed "The Golden Age of Illustration: 1880-1914", which includes one of the first pop-up books published in America, several books by prominent children's illustrator Edmund Dulac, and the first book in the popular "Brownies" series, the popularity of which was so wide-spread that the Kodak "Brownie" camera took inspiration from it.
Here we're in the process of preparing the books,
creating book supports and securing them with mylar.
The exhibit will be up for the rest of the month, so be sure to stop by!
The final exhibit!
The upcoming week's theme: preservation (I promise this week's blog post won't be so long, haha)!
- Kersti Francis, 2011 Summer Library Intern
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