last week!

This week was my last. This past Thursday was the last "Third Thursday' and it featured government maps. Like usual I helped in finding the maps and other things. We pulled out a couple of maps that were used by the Union troops for the civil war, which was especially interesting.

For the French exhibit I did a little more research that day. Karl had begun to make some definite selections for the exhibit and I was able to look over them with Cathy Baker, the library's rare book conservator. She talked to me about some of things they look for when they may conserve things, but mostly for the maps Karl picked out she was going to prepare them for exhibit, which didn't require any restoration or conservation. While at the conservation lab I learned that the process of physically setting up an exhibit is another whole process in itself. Even though I'm finished with my hours I have actually spoken to Karl and Cathy about being involved in putting up the French exhibit as I put so much work into the research.

I have learned a lot from this internship and it has opened the doors to seeing a lot of really neat things. I have never had the opportunity to leaf through books that are 200 years old prior to this, and it has really made me excited to begin a career in the museum industry.

Interesting discovery

Karl has been showing me many of the new maps in the library and a good few of them happen to be very impressive maps of France, that would be perfect for the exhibit. This week we took a new route to finding interesting artifacts on France by looking at the reference list in the back of a book about the history of traveling in France (the same book we were using to pull quotes from). We looked up some of the older books on mirlyn and sure enough we had a few of them in special collections. Karl pointed out a particular book about the travels of a balloon pilot over France and I sought it out at special collections. I did some research about the author, Dr. John Jeffries, and I found some very interesting things. As it turns out, he was one of the main witnesses for the defense for the case that followed the Boston Massacre, and supposedly he was also one of the surgeons that dealt with the injuries that followed. He was also the first person to successfully cross the English Channel by air, and he did this in a helium balloon. The book was very interesting, and included anecdotes such as a signed dedication to the science society that he presented it to. I talk about this more in my other blog if you're interested (annarborking.blogspot.com). Anyways, the book has a few pages that are visually interesting and could potentially be displayed, however, we could also use it to pull quotes from or even show a picture of it in a poster write up somewhere in the exhibit. While I may have looked at most of the maps of France, there are plenty of other routes for research that this method (looking at the references) has opened up for me! With 8 million items in the library's collection there's a good chance that my research on France could continue for a long time!

A little more time!

So last week I was told that the French exhibit was being moved back because they wanted a past exhibit, that features a lot of interesting objects from the collections, to be there while the city will be busy with graduation and Obama. This is good news in a way because we still haven't been able to speak with any of the professors. At this point in the research I have pretty much looked at every map (not atlas) of France in the Map Library and have taken pictures of those that I find interesting. We've taken into consideration the fact that some maps may be too large to exhibit, and have picked out interesting maps that are within books that could be laid out to exhibit. I have spoken with Cathy Baker (the conservator) who has agreed to involve me in the process of exhibition prep and we have arranged a time when I can go to the Buhr Facilities on South Campus to check out the lab and learn a bit about the process involved in preparing objects for exhibit. I have continued to research French maps in the collection and have begun creating a spreadsheet of the maps that I have looked at and any notes that I may want to refer to later. I have made this accessible as a google document so that the other intern, Molly, and I can both add to the same document and prevent us from looking at the same maps as her exhibit is focused on Paris. Karl gave us a few books to read about France and the early history of travel within the country to pull quotes from that we could potentially use in the exhibit. There were a few new acquisitions to the library as well, which could potentially add to the exhibit depending on what direction we decide to go (one was a French map of India, so we could perhaps focus on the French outposts for a portion on the exhibit). At least I will be able to work a little bit longer to better develop the French exhibit and I will be able to help out on the conservation process for the old exhibit coming in!

Third Thursday

Unfortunately last week I became sick with bronchitis so I couldn't work in the library as much as I would have liked. I was able to make it a full day for the "Third Thursday" open house. For this month we were exhibiting maps of Mexico to go along with an MFA student's final project that was going on in the room next door. The student's name was Aaron Johnson-Ortiz and the name of his exhibit was "Exile & Utopia." He wrote a book about a little known attempt at an early Mexican revolution that took place within the United States, and the maps from the Map Library were a large component of his research. He purposely opened his show at the same time that the Map Library featured their "Third Thursday" open house, and I find this to be an interesting choice. While working at the Kelsey Museum I learned about another MFA student who made a similar decision. This student is a sculptor and has developed a piece that is purposely meant to deteriorate and fall apart in a short amount of time. A large component of their piece is its context as this artist wanted to feature this piece amongst the other artifacts in the Kelsey Museum, and display it in a case just as if it were an artifact in the museum's collection. I absolutely love this idea because it brings to question the context of a museum, and what that means to us when we're viewing objects. There are so many directions that museums can head in, yet they have generally remained the same over the years. Mixing modern art with antiquities may be confusing but may also lead us to new thought that we may not have expected when entering the museum. I believe that the museum itself can be a piece of art to be viewed, and there is a lot of room for creative innovations within the industry.

Crunch Time

This week I continued to research items for the exhibit. We're a little nervous because I guess the exhibit is coming up in a few weeks, and the professors haven't been helping out as much as we'd hope. I went to a lecture by Julie Fremuth who is the rare books and paper conservator for the Clements Library. Her lecture was especially interesting, and I was able to talk to her afterwards and she was extremely kind. While I was in the Clements library I was able to check out a little bit of the new exhibit for the Native Americans. It was helpful to see how they displayed their books and created their labels. I've recently been exploring the Clements Library website and they have online exhibits. This is interesting because generally I feel like exhibits are important because you actually get to see the objects, but with this online exhibit there are very enlarged detailed images that actually allow you to better explore the objects than if they were in a case. The other thing that is interesting about the online exhibit, is that there would never be a need to remove it, so it will forever be accessible. The online exhibit concept is very interesting, but I would never hope for it to replace the real thing. On Thursday, while I was doing research in Special Collections, I ran into the paper conservator for the graduate library, Cathy Baker, and I was able to talk to her a little bit about the exhibit we're creating. She's going to have to prepare the objects for exhibit, and I really have no idea what that entails and she has agreed to involve me in the process. There is supposedly an amazing conservation lab at the Buhr facility on South Campus. This is really exciting for me, because in the end I'll have been able to see all angles of the process of developing an exhibit. I really had no idea how much work it was going to be!

historical maps and preparing for the weird and wonderful map day

We still have yet to speak with any of the experts who will be determining what goes in the exhibit. It's a little frustrating, but at the same time, we'll have a really good idea about what we have in the collection when it comes time to select the pieces. I was able to sit down with Mike Creech who is in charge of the library website spotlight, which highlights different objects in the University's collection. This was interesting, because his job is essentially what I'm doing with my blog for another class, which could eventually be tied into my internship here at the Map Library.

On Tuesday, I got to finally meet the books conservator, Cathy Baker, which was really pretty awesome. She's super nice and gave me a lot of advice about pursuing a career in conservation. I asked her a few basic questions about paper conservation as it differs from the object conservation I've been involved in and I've decided that I'd like to learn more about the process. She has offered for me to come into the conservation lab at sometime so she can show me around, and I'm hoping that I might be able to work with her when we begin conserving maps for the upcoming exhibit on France.

On Thursday Karl took us over to the Kelsey Museum where he pointed out some interesting components of the museum... such as the type of floor, cases, and labels. We discussed the layout of the museum and thought critically about the way it presented information to us. I suppose I'm a little biased because I love the Kelsey Museum, but the design of an exhibit and museum should be compared to creating art as there are limitless options. I began to think more critically about the museums I've seen and started to wonder why generally museums present items in a similar manner. You really must consider the audience, and while some information may seem extremely interesting to you, it may not be the same for others, so we'll have to think of ways to grab people's attention when designing the exhibit.

Making some progress

So, this coming week is the week when we'll be able to start talking with the professors helping to design the exhibit. This past week I spent some time researching the history of France, because I actually don't know very much about European history. I consolidated my notes into three pages, so I would never consider myself an expert on French history, but at least I know some of the main points! I thought that it might be helpful to try and organize the maps I've found based on what period of history they may align to. In order to do this, I needed a better understanding of the history of France. I did find some old historic maps of France that I think are particularly interesting. I found one map of France from the 1890's representing France during the Roman empire, which may be beneficial if we decide to organize the exhibit based on history.

There are also maps representing France during the Napoleonic empire. It seems that we may be able to find the the most interesting maps relating to the time of Napoleon. Napoleon is a good option because we have maps from his time, including military maps. Napoleon was also responsible for attempting to create a French empire, which would involve maps of other areas of Europe and even the Napoleonic expeditions to Egypt, which may be a good reason to discuss options with the Kelsey museum, as the expeditions to Egypt were archaeological.

Karl pulled out a pile of old maps from the rare maps folio and told us that they hadn't been catalogued yet and we should read through them and help him name, date, and measure them. These maps were mostly of the city of Paris, and were very interesting (possible ideas for the Paris exhibit?) One of them had several "x's" marking out points of interest, and I'd be very interested to see what these "x's" actually mark out. Maybe that can be a project for next week. Karl has told me that I'll be meeting with the books conservators to discuss treatment of several potential maps, and I hope I'll be able to do that this week because I've been really eager to meet the conservators!