Internships Blog

When I first got to the Salem Museum my first thoughts were that the museum has really changed a lot since the last time I visited. I had lived in Salem for a few years prior to starting college, but the director of the museum has since changed. When I arrived, my first assignment was to take some time and walk around and see what the museum was all about. In addition I had to take a legal pad and jot down my thoughts on the museum as a whole and the exhibits. The museum was packed with all sorts of things from an exhibit on Salem’s contributions in the Civil War, to a small exhibit on a moonshining still, to an exhibit that consisted of numerous children’s dolls that are absolutely terrifying. With all this done, I was tasked with researching the Bedford Boys, a group of young men from Bedford, Virginia fighting in D-day. Very soon after I was given my first lesson in using the archives at the museum and past perfect, the system for organizing the archives. I will have more on both of those later, but for now I used past perfect to find all sorts of WWII items. Eventually after finding all of these I made my own exhibit centered around WWII and the Bedford Boys. I really enjoyed getting to design and set up my own exhibit and it was in the first week no less. This exhibit did take a back seat in the internship as a whole though, because we were about to start work on the next feature exhibit for the Museum which would be centered around the forestry service and the firefighters. For scale, my exhibit filled a corner of the foyer, while this next exhibit would fill one of the largest rooms in the building to the brim.

I began this week by accessioning a new collection of items and leaning how to put it into PastPerfect.  After this I dove head first into research about Salem High School football history.  The Salem Museum is changing out one of their permanent exhibits at the end of the summer, and as the summer goes on the more I am becoming the main research intern for this new exhibit.  They are going to take out the Seven Lives, One Hometown exhibit and replace it with the Salem Champions’ Celebration Gallery.  This new permanent exhibit will focus on champions from various sports and events throughout Salem’s history, varying from the High School level to Roanoke College championships and beyond.

I personally have now researched Andrew Lewis High School Football Teams and Debate Teams; Salem High School Golf Team; Carver High School Football Team; Roanoke College Cross Country Team, Indoor Track Team, Basketball Team, and Lacrosse Team.  I look through yearbooks and Salem Times Registers for research, then I do the write-ups that will be presented in the exhibit.  I enjoy researching so this has been a fun couple of weeks for me.

From the second week to the first day of the fourth week, I have worked on making timeline and writing essays of the William-Brown house, the building of Salem Museum itself. When I was asked to work on this, I was wondering why I should do this, because it is so obvious that there should be some records or charts already had done before. Also, everyone can read some explanations on the website. Unfortunately, I heard from one of docents that prior executive director had been working on it, but Fran said she had no idea with any left data or organized records. Well, I would prefer to work on excel or visual thing that I can see the outcome directly. But It was still exciting to read through all the resources, not only articles but old ads, censure records and other things. It was thrilling when I could see the whole picture after all the separated puzzles came up together.

As the history of an “architecture” is intertwined with literally EVERYTHING, it was a demanding process. Stories of people who lived in there, who owned it, and who tried to preserve it are all linked in together. This historical local building conceives local stories. The spontaneous contribution from a society(SHS) and citizens to preserve this historical site was surprising. It was a huge project that had taken more than 20 years to make a plan out, plea against the rejection from City Council, and gathering donation for moving the building. Looking through whole phases and efforts how could the building move and be preserved, it was like getting on a time machine.

To be honest, reading and gathering new information, and organizing it in chronical order, those are not that hard process compare to writing an essay for signs. Depend on what kind of vocabs I use or which community I (subconsciously) support, the story can totally change and even one innocent individual can be shown as a villain. Sustaining objectiveness is the most demanding thing. And also, selecting what is the “important” or “necessary” thing to show to visitors is obscure. What kind of story could be less important than others?

I wish I could see the exhibition before I leave but it’s sad that I could not! I hope that my effort, time and labour would not be useless for the future exhibition. And I’m learning how to balance my effort to do works persistently. I found out that I easily lose interests if I don’t see any outcome or result soon. Haha.

As mentioned prior in my most recent post, I have accompanied the firm’s attorneys to both court and to a deposition.  A deposition involves the taking of a sworn, out-of-court oral testimony of a witness that may be referenced for later use in court or for investigative purposes. Depending on the case depositions can range in length from a couple of hours to even multiple days. You are likely familiar with the proceedings/antics of a deposition If you have seen The Social Network, a popular docudrama based on the meteoric rise of Mark Zuckerberg and the legal conflicts that followed Facebook’s ascension.

The deposition I observed lasted nearly six hours and was held at the law office of a neighboring firm (across the street).  In this particular case the witness to be questioned was a client of our firm.  The predominate issue of this particular case was the division of postnuptial (following divorce) assets, which is often the case in family/divorce law.  The witness was questioned regarding his business ownership, financial holdings and the nature of his relationship to his children.  The questioning was carried out by the opposing council’s lead attorney and border-lined complete hostility on numerous occasions.  As you might expect, this is not unusual for family law (or really any law).  After 6 hours of this questioning, the opposing council rested and the deposition was concluded.  This, more than any previous experience at OsborneFletch gave me a raw and unfiltered window into the behind the scenes (outside the courtroom)  interactions with clients, other attorneys and the law that binds them.

(Pictured above) Office art: The Olympigs

On the first day, the first thing I had to do was reviewing all the exhibitions in the museum. I was asked by Alex to explain which points were good and which points were needed to be improved. Well, when you see the building from outside, the overall façade doesn’t seem that capacious though, but I’m pretty sure that anyone who has been there before will say it’s much bigger than she or he expected. I realized that there are a lot of things to learn and study. Honestly, except the first floor, the other rooms seemed to need desperate help and remodelling. It was exciting that I could help them but I worried more if I could help the museum enough as other interns do. After that, Alex explained the overall construct of the museum and the location of archives.
Then, I learned how to make “Accession.” In Salem Museum, we use a “new” system rather than the old one. It is comprised of (year number)-(collection number)-(item number). After writing the “Accession” thing, I stored some donated gifts with acid-free papers and tapes.

The second day-It was my first time to write the “accession” by myself. Except for the “description” thing, everything was…no.. I cannot say it was easy. Especially, when I was describing the donated gift, it was hard to use and apply all the descriptive adjectives. I was so embarrassed and confused when I first saw the stuffed bird doll, the mascot of Salem High school ice hockey team, wearing Spartan armaments. So I referred to some previous accessions that other interns had written before and tried to study the writing style and frequently used expressions. Sadly, I assume that Alex will not make me write the accession anymore.. hahaahha…Then, I learned how to record the accession in digital archive using Past-Perfect. Simple ctrl-C and ctrl-V, it was relaxing(?) and peaceful work.

The Third day- For a future exhibition about Championships in Salem, Alex asked me to find champion team pictures in yearbooks. I searched them of SHS, GHS, AL, covering from 19300s-2000s. At the first time, I was confused with the semester-counting system different from the Korean one. For instance, I was not used to thinking if I want to find the 1999 football championship picture, I should find it in 2000 yearbook. Moreover, every sport was played in every other season. So I asked him and other docents couple of times to make it sure. If I had not asked them, maybe I could have made a big mistake and it could have taken more time to finish it. When you are confused, don’t afraid to ASK for help. It was fun to see how all the various extra-curricular activities, especially sports, were emphasized in American school culture.

 

When I began my internship on July 24th I was uncertain of whether I would continue on to take the LSAT and apply to a law school.  The past few weeks have helped to solidify my interest in law.  Aspects of the practice such as excellence in writing, reading comprehension and generally witty banter have incited (in myself) a fiery interest for potentially pursuing a career as an attorney.

Since my last post, I have been prompted by my supervisors to review key information in certain cases, appear in court (numerous times) and run documents between the firm and the courthouse.  Generally, I have become familiar with the proceedings and nuances of family law and court in Kentucky.  One aspect of this internship which continues to haunt my daily chores is filing.  The firm files 50-100 client documents a day, this process of monotony is carried out by yours truly.  Yet, in spite of this, my complaints are minute due to the stimulation that I get from other more intriguing activities such as court days or depositions.   

(Pictured above is the office mascot and spoiled rotten dog child, Annie)

For the past two weeks, I’ve been working on a couple of projects related to the RVPF website.  Basically, the foundation wanted me to find information on cemetery preservation for their website by emailing Tom Klatka at the Virginia Department of Historic Resources.  Funny thing is I tried to apply for an internship under him before I applied at at RVPF.

The first project I worked on was related to information on cemetery preservation from various workshops and information on historical cemeteries.  I expected Mr. Klatka to send me a few web links and maybe a book that has been written on the topic, but instead I got a link to a 600 page PDF on the history of burial practices in America, preservation, and information on various historical cemeteries in Roanoke.  Thankfully, my supervisor did not want me to read through all of it and said she would look through it herself to find want they need.  I’m glad she took that PDF off my hands!  I prefer my 600 page books to be on fiction, not burial practices and cemeteries.

The other project ended with a less extreme reply from Mr. Klatka.  I needed a FAQ on how to preserve historic cemeteries, and I can either make one from the information provided or use one Mr. Klatka made.  He already had one ready for me to use so making one was unnecessary.  The FAQ covered many topics such as property rights regarding cemeteries on private land and who to call when finding burial grounds.  It was interesting to read and showed me just how much work goes into preserving historic burial grounds.

Now that three projects are out of the way, I should be getting close to wrapping up this internship.  The next project I’ll be working on involves endangered historical sites in Roanoke.