Conquering New Heights

I apologize for this being a later than normal blog post. While it seems like it had been a normal week, it has gone by fast.

Monday was the quietest day of the week. I spent most of my day in the ReSource Room helping out a bunch of families find World War II records (which were really popular for some reason) and writing lesson plans for the two activities the Duke group participated in the previous week. This is my first time writing out official lesson plans, which is a bit nerve-wracking, but after a lot of review on the formatting of them, and developing my content to fit this template, they are in the process of review.

Tuesday I was out at Archives II for a full day!! No snow in the way this time! Most of my day was spent back in Stack 350, working on the Brazilian Embassy records. After working on this for three weeks, I am able to figure out what city is on the coast and what city is in the jungle based on how much mold there is on the records! I wish I could take some photos of the stack area and some of the records I work with, but it would be compromising the preservation of the records. It's funny, some of the archivists who have been back in these records before have actually left little notes on the boxes warning people about the deterioration of the records. This is precisely why I am working on this, to save these one-of-a-kind documents before they are destroyed forever.

When I wasn't working with these records or any of my other duties as an intern, I have been developing a scavenger hunt for Saturday, which is a Polar Exploration Family day. After two days, I have the entire thing completed! It took quite a fight with Adobe InDesign, but the booklet is complete and ready for young ones to come and explore. I was a little nervous diving right into this project, since I was basically on my own with this one, but I am hopeful that it will turn out to be a success.

Wednesdays' field trip marked the beginning of the museum extravaganza! Our first stop in this was the Museum of Crime and Punishment, a new museum on the Washington DC scene. It was very different and good in terms of content, but the display methods were not totally to my liking. (This is just something that comes out of studying museums, you just pick up on little things.) A few exhibits were on the Old West, the Mob, cold cases, and they even had a full CSI lab. There was also some interactive stations that included a SWAT team simulation and a polygraph test. Once again, very cool content! Next week is a totally different museum, the Holocaust Museum, which should be very somber experience.