Marmalade

I wish I had a better memory on days like this. I wish I could remember why I obsessively started asking for a cat or why I decided on a Maine Coon. Dad had started dragging me to cat shows I know was a part of it and I knew asking for another dog was getting me no where so I went with the biggest cat breed I could find. Marm didn’t let me down. Smaller than her champion brothers got, she was still at 20 pounds most of her adult life. I marvel at how little she once was. Sadly, I don’t have any of her kitten photos digitized – they’re all at home in Marm’s album on my shelf. There are the early pictures, before she grew into her ears and when she would still chase her cat toys around the house. Then there are the middle years, Marm at her best, finding all sorts of interesting places to sleep. It was one of the things she was best at, along with eating, getting into things she shouldn’t and whining constantly to my mother. She also had a knack for choosing the most inconvenient times to want attention. She was my study buddy in high school. Call me crazy but I swear she knew French for a while there. She listened as I read aloud Le Petit Prince or tried out sentences for my latest sujet. She was my companion while I stayed up working on projects that should have been done long before the night before it was due. She laid with me when I was sick and always seemed to know when I was down. She watched movies with me, sharing popcorn with me and never failed to be there when I needed her. As long as it was convenient for her of course. She was queen of all she surveyed. We all danced to her tune.

There were certain things you could always count on with Marm around. One, it wouldn’t be quiet. She had a voice and she knew how to use it. Mom always said she was whining – I think she just had one of those voices and was a bit of a chatterbox. Two, if there was paper on the floor, on the couch, on the table, she would be on it. Three, if you recently got up from the couch or the easy chair, she would be in it when you got back. The incredible thing was, you just sat somewhere else then. To move her was unthinkable. Four, she had the look of distain ready at all times. No one could look haughtier than my cat could. I swear she had it down to an art. Five, if I was planning to give her a bath, she would mysteriously disappear. I am so sad I never took a picture of her looking like a drowned rat in the tub but I could never seem to do such an injustice to her. Six, if I had a book in my hands, she was in my lap. I think she heard a lot of stories because of that (I like to think Austen was her favorite but I think am projecting). I like to read aloud anyway and she seemed to like to listen. Seven, for a house cat, she loved our back porch. It was her outdoors and her goal was to become as dirty as she could in as little time possible. Eight, she couldn’t hold a grudge to save her soul. She was never very welcoming when I’d come back from being away at school. She’d ignore me when I first came in, wouldn’t look at me when I’d scoop her up but she’d saunter in as I unpacked, getting into trouble as usual and then, the second I sat down, she’d be on top of me. Nine, Miss Priss she was, no matter what. Looking like a drowned rat after her baths, she’d still sit up and glare at me as I dried her. Even a soaking wet Marm had her dignity. Ten, she wasn’t perfect but she was Marm and she was one of my best friends who was always there when I needed her to be, no matter what. She has been one of the things I have missed most when I am away from home and it never occurred to think one day she wouldn’t be there.

Marm left us on Wednesday of this past week very suddenly. She had cancer and we didn't know until it was too late. My little Marmalade Blaze of Big Tree Cattery is gone and my last memory of her is sitting at the top of Grammy’s staircase, front paws crossed, looking all the world like a queen surveying her kingdom. And so she was, because for eleven years, she ruled our house and I know the next time I go home, there will be a something missing because we’ve lost our queen.

Daddy has done such a beautiful job of taking her picture over the years but I wanted to share one of my favorites. She had a knack for mischief especially on Christmas morning. I hope, wherever she is, she hasn’t lost it. Goodbye Baby Girl, I'll miss you.

The Questions to Answer in the End

(last reflective paper for class)

As I wrap up my summer internship, everyone at work has been asking me what I liked best, what I did not like, do you still want to be an archivist after this? In turn, in order to answer, I have been doing a lot of thinking about what exactly it is that I like about the work. I will admit, sitting in a windowless room, staring at a computer screen day in and day out would have driven me insane two months ago. So one perk to the job is the variety. Because we had a schedule of some sorts at SIA, I knew what building and what I would be working on every day. My supervisors did not always have that luxury. The variety of their work excited me – some days they worked on digital materials, another day they would be processing, the next they would be out at an appraisal or doing outreach with another office in the Smithsonian. I like a job that gives me variety and a sense of adventure. Being an intern there to work on a single project, I did not always get that variety myself but I see the possibility of it in the profession.
I also answer to the “what did you like” question, the feeling of discovery. True, a lot of the collections I worked on outside of my scanning room were not the most riveting of materials – a lot of administration paperwork and so on but a few of the collections were truly interesting and I was never sure what I was going to find next. One collection, from the National Air and Space Museum had video footage of planes being flown into Dulles airport for the NASM Hazy Center Annex at the airport. How often to get to see a space shuttle piggy backing on a 747? Or another collection from the National Museum for Natural History was entirely correspondence between a geologist and professors, collectors, and experts in the field with some fun dirt samples and weird leaves thrown in for good measure. I like wondering also who will use this collection next and what will they discover in it?
I am hard pressed to answer the question “what did you not like.” One thing I did not care of was the isolation from the archives department. Because of the location of the scanning room, I rarely saw my other interns or, often, my supervisor simply because of my location. That is no fault of the profession, more poor office planning. While I like having a space to work in alone and be able to organize everything “my” way, I would like to see other people from time to time…I also did not like getting frustrated with the work which would happen every so often. I would find whole groups of photos with no names or find ruined pictures that no one bothered to remove the first time the collection was looked over. However, my supervisor assures me that that is simply a part of the work. There will be boxes of unknowns and silly people who do not understand what happens to rubber bands thirty years down the road (they harden and stain and crumble…not good). It is a frustrating job I have been forewarned by everyone in the office but also a rewarding job. I have only been able to observe the reference desk a few times but the look on people’s faces when we have that obscure document from the National Museum of American History or we have that photo of the old National Air and Space Museum is worth it.
As for the last question, “do I still want to be an archivist”, the answer is a resounding yes. It took me so long to find a career that was challenging and rewarding enough to keep my interest and fit into what I am personally interested in outside of work. Now I just need to work on the inevitable next question: “what kind of archive do you think you would like to work in?” I am still deciding this one. I really enjoyed my time at the Smithsonian and I would definitely apply if they decide they want to hire in the spring but I want to keep my options open and I have been lucky enough to have co-workers this summer who have experiences in just about every type of archive you can find so they have given me a lot to think about. It’s a question I am still working on but I feel this summer has given me a taste of an institution and an environment that I would be very happy to work in long term any time in the future.

The Phillips Collection

OK, while the best art museum in this town will remain the National Gallery of Art, the Phillips Collection gets the prize for the best atmosphere of an art museum. While I especially felt under dressed here (though I usually do in this town), The Phillips Collection is comprised of two buildings, one a modern building and the other, an old house off of Dupont Circle. So, for part of your walk through the museum, you're in a typical "museum" setting with perfect lighting and few windows. For the other part, you wander into the old Victorian house and feel like someone has let you wander their house, enjoying their art collection. It created a very intimate feeling to the museum which I enjoyed. Don't get me wrong, I love my Louvre but the small setting of feeling like I stepped into some one's parlor to comment on their O'Keefe was a unique and special experience.

And then there is the painting that I went to see. I turned a corner and there it was, so much bigger than I expected. Renoir's Luncheon of the Boating Party. It literally took my breath away and I had to sit on the bench in front of it and stare (around the two men who insisted on discussing the painting for what felt like eons directly in front of it). Renoir has always been my second favorite (not being a tortured enough artist for me to love as much as my Van Gogh). To see this painting, arguably not his best, but his best-known, work was a joy. It ranks up there with turning the corner to see Starry Night at MOMA or finding down in the basement Crows with Wheatfield in Amsterdam. I will admit, I thought it was smaller because of the film Amelie. The canvas in the movie is smaller that the painting actually is but I admit I also stared at the girl with the glass and smiled. The colors also blew me away. The flowers on the girl's hat with the dog were so vivid and textured, I would have sworn they were just painted yesterday. Also, this painting has such movement. You expect to see the next moments at any second, as if you were watching a film instead of looking at a painting. I have said it before, but I'll say it again, I wish I could see the world the way the Impressionists saw it. We all should be so lucky.

learning goal check

(reflective report for school)

I thought this week since I only have about three weeks left I should reflect a little on how I am doing with my project and my learning goals for the summer. For one, I am realizing now that I was unrealistic in thinking I could complete the project this summer. It was never the intention of my supervisor that I should finish however; I thought to myself I could get the main boxes scanned over the course of the summer. I started on the letter H. I am just now rounding the corner of the letter L. It sounds like I have not gotten far at all. But looking at the numbers, I have scanned over 1770 photos into the database. Sadly, I am never going to see the final steps of the project personally at SIA. The refining of the metadata, the linking of the actual photo file to the database entry and the launch of the database into SIRIS, the Smithsonian Institute database on-line where it would be searchable by the user will take place long after I am back at school or even out in the work force. I am just starting to realize the massive amount of time and resources it takes to make a project like this get off the ground and to finally see it completed.

My supervisor took time to explain to me this week about the SIRIS protocol and what the collection will need to go through still after the scanning is done. She was very interested in using flickr as a resource to help identify people we know little or nothing about in the Science Service photos. The Smithsonian Institute and the Library of Congress have both already utilized flickr to not only give better access to their users but to tap into their users’ information. It is amazing to me the network of resources outside of an institution that are available if we only have the tools to use them. I will be interested to see if flickr or a site like it will be used with my collection in the future. This fit well into one of my learning goals for the summer which was to understand how a digitization project comes together from start to finish, what an institution needs to know or learn to make a project of this magnitude a worth-while endeavor that will ultimately help the user of an archives to better access and understand a collection. What I find interesting in this case, with the Science Service photos, is we have a lot of blanks. Photos with only initials and a last name or, worst-case scenario, simply a last name. No university, no area of science to go off on. I have googled many and come up with full names for few. It is another project in itself and one that digitization of the photos could help complete if SIA decides to go the ‘flickr route.’

Along with the start to finish of a digitization project, I have learned a lot about processing collections: when to toss, when to keep, when a finding aid is “good enough” to work for the moment. Something the classroom and the real world have both agreed on whole heartedly is there is never enough time, people, or money to do everything you want to do with a collection and its finding aid. Sometimes, one simply has to say that it is as good as it is going to get for the moment and move on. A perfectionist would die a slow and painful death in the archives. You are perpetually leaving everything half done with the idea that some day you will come back and finish that finding aid to perfection, list other collections that link to it in the archives and elsewhere, come back and digitize everything. In reality, the collections I put back on the shelf today at Fullerton will probably never be returned to – they will live with a simple listing of folders and a brief summary of where the papers come from and what they may pertain to during the dates listed. A user could use them easily, true, but we could do better…if we had time.

So, my learning goals are there. I feel I have gleaned a lot from my digitization project as well as the time I have spent processing collections. I learned patience certainly but from discussing the big picture, I see that it is hard work and lives you often with the feeling that if you only had a little more time, it could be done that much better. It is a problem found in many lines of work. However, I often find myself wondering, as I work on a collection, which will use it next and what can I add to a finding aid to help them in their scavenger hunt. So I add a few lines to a summary, a few lines after a folder name to say something interesting I have found in my perusal of the collection over a few hours of processing. It is not much but the user is something SI has made me very aware of and I feel that one of my lessons, even if it was not in my learning goals or even something my supervisor has pointed out to me, is that the user is always there in the back of my mind and I am working to make the user’s quest in the archives go that much smoother. If it takes me five extra minutes at my computer, in the end, I think it is worth it.

A weekend of cemeteries

It was actually more cheerful than it sounds for the most part. Work last week went quickly. Having Monday off helped a lot. I scanned for three days and was out at Fullerton again on Friday where I finished the collection I had started the week before so that was good. I also finally got a chance to meet with my supervisor for a bit and got a lot of questions cleared up I had lingering from the appraisal I had tagged along to plus some questions I had about the scanning project I was working on. Friday night I stayed over at Mackenzie's since we planned on leaving at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning.

Actually, it wasn't even dawn yet. We left DC at 4:30 AM and arrived in Gettysburg a little before 6 AM. We headed up to Little Round Top to have a view of the battlefields before the sun rose. I have to admit, seeing the misty fields and the sky lighten purply red was beautiful. I lived there for four years and didn't see it. Funny the things you never get around to doing just because you assume you have all the time in the world to do them in. We continued on down into the park afterwards, watching the sun come up before we had breakfast at LD's after a brief side trip onto campus to get to the ATM. Campus is a bit torn up at the moment. They're building the new athletic center but the new child care center they opened last year looks beautiful even if it was weird to see a building where Stone Lot used to be. After breakfast, we walked the National Cemetery all the way down to the Lincoln Memorial Wall at the back with the Gettysburg Address engraved next to a bust of Lincoln. We then drove up to the Peace Light and did a lot of the Auto Tour. We also climbed to the top of Big Round Top - not that you can tell from the pictures - not much a view through all the trees up there.

We stopped at the new Visitor's Center on the way out of Gettysburg and it is HUGE! I think the new store is bigger than the entire old building. I didn't like that the old buildings were just sitting there crumbling though - they need to tear them down or find a use for them - they look awful. The new center is beautiful though and huge and fits the needs of the area much better so kudos to the designer. We headed over to Lancaster next and explored Amish Country. We just drove around, picking a few side roads to explore down, to see off the "real" Amish, not the tourist displays. Their farms are simply beautiful - so big and in perfect condition. A lot of farms were bringing in their hay so they had these beautiful Belgian work teams out in the fields. It was different to see work horses actually "working" instead of the hitch classes I loved watching at the state fair. I have a lot of respect for their way of life but I don't think I'm signing up for it any time soon. I wouldn't last long anyway. What would they do with a girl who can't sew or cook to save her life? I might not be such a hopeless case with baking...hmmm....something to think about. Maybe I could do a vacation to Amish Country and stay on a farm for a week. I think that would be enough time for me to miss my computer and air conditioning sufficiently enough.

We made one more stop in PA - Harrisburg. We visited the Capital building which is very ornate and decorated within an inch of its life. It also looked very rich - something tells me Albany would not be this impressive. One of these days I should visit my home state's capital though...add that to my list. We got back to DC around 6 PM and I had a quiet night after that.

I didn't start as early the next morning as I had wanted to so it was already blazing when I got to Arlington National Cemetery. Visiting a place with little shade in a Code Red Heat Advisory is a bad idea - I advise against it. I especially advise against climbing hills and stairs to visit graves in this heat. Just some friendly advise. However, I liked seeing the Kennedy graves again - they are beautifully presented on the hill overlooking DC. I then walked up to Arlington House and saw the house (not much there currently) and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers from the Civil War. I started the trek then to the Tomb of the Unknowns. Made it there in time to see the Changing of the Guard which was great - such ceremony to a little thing. Must be the British left in us. I felt bad for those guys though in full outfit under than sun. It must have been 100 by then.

After the Changing, I walked over to the Challenger memorial. I was pleased to see a memorial had been added for the Columbia crew as well. Not a tear shed yet which was impressive as I'd even listened to John Denver's tribute to the Challenger crew (They Were Flying For Me) before I came (I swear my iPod is psychic - what song does she most not want to hear on the way to Arlington?) which never fails to tear me up on its own. Lastly, I walked up to the mast of the USS Maine, the ship sunk off the coast of Cuba during the Spanish-American War. After that, I had to hike all the way back to the start of the cemetery. At that point, the $15 tour bus looked like money well spent but I stuck it out. Luckily, all of Kathy's reminders of sun screen and water had been remembered before I left the house so I didn't melt.

Once back on the Metro, I had some time to kill so I found a bookstore off Metro Center and succeeded in only spending $10 - this is impressive people, look impressed - before I headed over to Chinatown to see Mamma Mia! In not spoiling the movie for anyone, I was pleasantly surprised by the film. They stayed very close to the musical's original plot - always keeps me happy - and even kept a lot of the fun dances I remember from the stage show. My one gripe is that, I am sorry, but Pierce Brosnan cannot sing. It was painful at times. This is why James Bond does not sing people and he shouldn't have too. Even Meryl Streep, a woman who I didn't think had a musical bone in her body, sounded better than him. In fact, I was very surprised by Meryl's performance. She had me won over by the end (although, I would have staged The Winner Takes It All a bit different but that's just me). Other than that, it gets three stars from me.

This week is looking fairly standard. I have another report due on Friday so I need to come up with a topic for it here soon. I also am hoping to go see The Phillips Collection on Thursday night and then I think my museum/gallery list is complete - I may have a few stragglers to finish up. I'm actually not down here for much longer which is blowing my mind - I'm not quite sure where the summer went to be honest. However, I have a full couple of weeks left so I'm making the most of it.

Family Times

When family comes to visit, I have time for nothing else. Last week was fairly quiet at work. I finished another box on Thursday and was out at Fullerton in Virginia all day on Friday. My parents and Ally got here on Saturday afternoon. I went with them to their hotel over in Georgetown. It was a very nice hotel - I was impressed. After they settled in, we walked down to Foggy Bottom to get them metro cards for the next two days. We'd made plans to meet Kathy and Scott on the waterfront from dinner so we were going to head to Georgetown. We took the bus over to Kennedy Center and walked down past Watergate and the waterfront into downtown Georgetown and the shopping district. I got a a great deal in H&M and we wondered the Shops at Georgetown (a mall) before we headed back to the waterfront. We ate at Tony and Joe's, a seafood restaurant right on the docks - it was a beautiful night.

The next day we did the Smithsonian Zoo in the morning. Mom got to see her pandas. Her and Daddy went early so Mom actually got to see them moving. All I saw them doing was sleep - lol. The sea lions were the best to watch though and they had tons of a personal favorite, the golden lion tamerin. It got pretty crowded by the beginning of the afternoon so we headed out. We had planned to do the monuments this night but it started to pour just after we got off the metro at L'Enfant. So we headed back to Union Station so Dad could take pictures somewhere. :-)

The next morning, Ally and I did the Holocaust Memorial Museum while Mom and Dad did the Air & Space Museum. It was my third time doing the Holocaust Museum and I got through it this time without crying once - I am making progress. After we met up with Mom and Dad, we went and ate at the Natural History Museum and then went and visited the new Jim Henson exhibit at the International Gallery. I am in love with this exhibit - it has some of Henson's earliest artwork along with lots of video footage throughout. Not too mention, puppets of Kermit, the Fraggles, Bert and Ernie, Rowlf and more. I am totally going back several times. Its open until October so anyone coming down - you must go!

After that, we went back to the hotel for a bit before driving back down to eat dinner. We ate at an Italian restaurant at the Ronald Reagan building - I had this fabulous Primavera dish. Afterwards, we walked over to see the White House so Ally could see it before she left again. From there, we drove over to the Capitol building and Dad took pictures forever. Thankfully, there was a band playing on the Capitol Steps so I did some swing dancing on the lawn of the Capitol to entertain myself. We did a family picture too - our first since Ally could talk. It's been awhile...Next was the Lincoln Memorial and we got to meet up with Aunt Michele, Uncle Joe and Joey here so that was great. We then walked down to the World War II memorial. This is very close to my favorite one - it was beautiful to see at night with all the lights in the water.

The next morning, the family took off for Atlantic City, Ally shoved into the backseat (luckily, I managed to get my stuff on the route home - not much leg room because of it though - sorry!). I got to meet Aunt Michele, Uncle Joe and Joey for lunch yesterday luckily. I had them meet me at the food court at the NMAI - the best food court of the Smithsonian which they loved so I was glad we got to eat together then :-)

The rest of this week is shaping up. I'm back at Fullerton on Friday. The new Batman movie comes out this weekend and I'm off to Gettysburg of all places on Sunday. First time back since I graduated so it's going to be weird but good. I'm excited for some Rita's and dinner at LD's again though :-)

Work Culture at SIA

(reflective report for school)

For this week’s report, I wanted to reflect a little on the work culture and management of the archives at the Smithsonian. The other archive I had worked in prior to this internship was my undergraduate college’s archive. While the students there were allowed to dress casually, for the most part, it was a formal environment to work in with a hands-on management style. The Smithsonian archives takes a much more casual, hands-off approach to management that creates a very casual, very relaxed work culture where there is little difference between the manager and the intern in how you interact.

In terms of management, which in turn creates the work culture, there is very little “intense” management. My supervisor works on the opposite side of the building from where the scanning room, where I spend most of my time, is located. She comes over to see me maybe twice a day if she is even in the office. Often much of the staff is out of the office at other archive locations or involved in work at other museums for the Smithsonian. Because of this, I am in charge of my time management and project advancement. I have no manager breathing down my neck if I get a bit behind on a box because there were more pictures in some of the folders than usual. I have no deadline except what I myself set. For my work style, this type of management is perfect. I have a lot of independence in how I structure my days. On certain days that I am out of the scanning room and either out at the Fullerton warehouse or working on a different collection at Capital Gallery, I am always given instructions first and ask any questions before I am set loose and once again, I set my own pace. This works very well for me, as I stated before. I do not hesitate to ask questions if I get stuck or confused but I am not left feeling like my supervisor will be constantly looking over my shoulder either. For me, this means I enjoy the work more, learn more and work harder. I am my hardest taskmaster. A more controlling management style would get me nervous and flustered and I would enjoy the work less.

That said I found having my work checked over is a good thing for me. A fellow intern is doing quality control on my work in the scanning room, making sure my entries in the database are filled out correctly and match up to the digital image. Being my own taskmaster so often means I can get a little sloppy. I think I tend to get into a zone of repetition and stop paying as much attention as I need to the details. Having my work checked this past week reminded me that, while I enjoy my independence at work, I also need to police myself a bit better in general. I am trying to check over my entries at the end of the day to make sure I did not forget something silly like changing a folder name or not putting a “dr.” before someone’s name where it belongs. If I take the time to do this, most of the mistakes my fellow intern is finding would disappear.

Because of this management system, the work culture at SIA is very casual and informal. The director of the archives is approachable by everyone and anyone in her office. All have an open-door policy. I joke and laugh with my supervisor a lot and they encourage all the interns to discuss our projects but also just to talk in general. We have the Internet radio playing when I am over in the archives offices, working on a collection. We share fun or weird discoveries in our collections with each other and our supervisors. The dress code is very casual so I personally am even more in a comfort zone at work. The Records management side tends to be a bit more formal so I am definitely more comfortable in the archives offices even if I spend the most time on the records management side in the scanning room. It is an interesting office because of the physical split in where the archives have their offices and workspace and where the records management teams have offices. However, while more formal in dress, the records management people are just as casual in manner and also add their own radio and stories to the atmosphere of the office. Overall, I find it a very comfortable and relaxing place to work. I like being able to set my pace and be my own manager for the most part around people who are encouraging and helpful as well as genuinely interested in sharing their experiences and learning mine.