andiemel

My internship at the Salem Museum has come to an end and I have learned so much! I have enjoyed this experience and I am grateful to have had this experience as well. I was able to learn all the ins and outs of what goes on behind the scenes in a museum. This knowledge will be helpful as I go on into my future career. I hope to work in a museum after I graduate, so everything I learned will help me to excel at a future job. Being able to create my own exhibit was one of the highlights of the internship. The small exhibit goes over some music history of Salem and has some really cool objects in it. The exhibit was a nice way to combine all the skills I have learned over the semester and see them in action!

Over the past week at my internship, I have started to put together my exhibit. This will be a small exhibit in a display case near the entrance of the museum. To make this exhibit I will get to use all the skills I have learned over my time at the Salem Museum. I got to pick my theme for the exhibit and I chose an overview of local music history. Using objects from their archives I will be able to show some examples of music that was made here in Salem and how technologies have changed in recording technology. The first step was to search through the archives and look for objects I could use in the exhibit and what stories I could tell with them. The next step I have done was to start to write captions to pair with the objects. Over the next few weeks of wrapping up my internship, I will finish up and get to put up my display! I hope to show pictures of it in my next blog post!

During the first week of October the Salem Museum held their annual Ghost Walk Event! During the Ghost Walk, guests are taken on a tour through the cemetery across the street and get to meet the ghosts of important people in Salem’s history. During this years Ghost Walk, I was able to lead one tour and also work a hands on history table inside the museum that had objects relating to the ghosts. Leading the tour went well and it was a lot of fun getting to experience the Ghost Walk for myself as well! The hands on table is what I did for most of the weekend and it gave guests and opportunity to learn some history about the ghosts before going on the tour. Each item was pulled from the museums collection and was able to relate back to one of the ghosts and their story of Salem. Guests were allowed to touch and hold small objects while wearing gloves while I explained the significance of the object to them. It was a lot of fun and I also got to learn a lot about Salem from this experience!

In the weeks since my last blog post I have learned a lot more at my internship! I have been helping do some research and find objects in the archives for a new exhibit. I have been searching through the archives to find small objects that will go with some of the displays in the exhibit. I have also helped to write some captions for images, and got to practice writing a short biography for a person as well. It can be difficult to keep the word count down of the captions and also make sure you include all the important information. I think learning to write these concise captions will help to benefit my writing skills in the end. I am looking forward to participating in the museums Ghost Walk this coming weekend as well!

I started my internship with the Salem Museum a few weeks ago now and I am enjoying it! During the time that I have been at the internship so far I have spent time getting familiar with the exhibits and how they like to keep things set up. The exhibits at the Salem Museum are set up to show those who come in what Salem is like in the past and the present with items from throughout Salem’s history. Last week, I got introduced to their archive rooms and accession system which is called Past Perfect. The system helps them to keep track of everything that is donated and then accessioned into the museum. When these items aren’t on display they are kept in the archive rooms. I got to do a scavenger hunt activity that helped me to learn how the system works and will help me later on in the internship when I need to find something that has been accessioned! Pictured below is the scavenger hunt activity. I look forward to learning more while I do my internship here!