Internships Blog

Photo by Lindsay Blanchfield. “Cataloged Books.” At the National Sporting Library & Museum, Middleburg, Virginia. July 13, 2023.

In the last week of my internship, I learned how librarians purchase and search for new books to add to their collections. My job was to look through a book, like an encyclopedia, with all of the Derrydale Press published books. Derrydale Press was a big publishing company in the early 19th century that ended in the 1930s during the Great Depression. This was a time before books became mass-produced. My job was to type out every book and its dates on a Word document, so we could go through the record later when seeing what books we needed to add to the collection. Then, I had to go through the National Sporting Library Museum online catalog to see if we had the book and then go back to the document and put an X either on yes or no. I had to thoroughly review the catalog to ensure that even though we had the book, I would ensure we had the first edition. The library always wants the earliest version of the book.
Later that week, I had to do a similar process to what I did with the Derrydal Press, but this time I went through “American Fishing Book.” This book had many fishing books that have been published and organized alphabetically. This time I did not have to create a Word document; I was allowed to write either a checkmark or a circle representing a zero in the book. I still had to use the library’s online catalog to see if we had the book. The most challenging thing I had to overcome was that as I was going through the book, I realized that some authors under their names would have more than one book that I had to look up in the system.
I also got to help work on the finishing touches of the display for the fly fishing festival. This required me to print out the book labels that would go with the books on display that had already been picked out and played on the proper page to represent fly fishing in the display. Then I had to get some clear rapping tape to ensure the page stayed open to the right page and blocks to prop up the books. Lastly, I had to make sure that everything was straight and everything was in its proper place.

From the first week of my internship, I have gotten more opportunities to work with many donated books from several different donations. The NSLM takes in donated books to see if these gracious people have books that the NSLM does not have in their collection, or if they already do, they put them towards their annual donated book sale, which helps to raise money for items the library needs.

The steps required to prepare them for the donation book sale are to individually go through each book by logging them in a document with the person who donated the books with the title, author, and date. Then I go to the NSLM online catalog to then search to see if we already have the book in their collection. If we do, we put them in a separate pile to be a part of the book donation sale, or if they do not have the book already in their collection, they go into a pile to be cataloged. This was a very long and tirades process. My supervisor developed a better system than having one person do both steps simultaneously. One of us logged in to each book while she used the NSLM online catalog to search for each book. This made the process go a lot faster since the donated book sale is coming up very soon, and there are still many books to go through.

The next step that I did was to go through all of the donated books that we are going to use in the donated book sale and put them into categories based on the already established system that the library uses to shelve their books (equestrian, hunting/Fox-holds, fiction, art, & bibliographies). Some books were put into a different category based on their publication, Derrydale Press, which no longer publishes books and first editions. There will also be a separate table with books that are very brittle and falling apart, with the lowest price. Once I did that, I had to devise a money system with different colored post-its representing different prices for the books with the help of my supervisor. How I decide what I make each price book is I use online booksellers to gauge the price those books sell for. I found it very difficult to come up with book prices because I had to figure out the appropriate amount to sell a book while still making sure that the library would gain a profit. However, using the internet to see what the same book is going for is very helpful. We still have a lot to do in a week to prepare for this event, which I will focus on for most of next week to prepare.

My second to last week has been one of the busiest, but most enjoyable, yet. To begin the week, I had to complete my timeline of Tazewell Community Hospital. To finish the timeline, I had to continue searching through annual reports and Roanoke Times newspaper articles. 

Once I finished, I started on a timeline of Rockbridge Memorial (previously called Stonewall Jackson). This hospital was a little tricker to gather as much information from Carilion on, as it has gone through a few periods of being owned and not-owned by Carilion. 

When I finished the timeline, I had my 5th interview of my internship. This interview was one I did not expect to be as good as it ended up turning out. The narrator of my Oral History interview is in her 42nd year working at Carilion, and she came with stories to prove it. She reflected on beginning her career in Environmental Services in the early 80’s, working and cleaning on every single floor and unit in all of the hospital buildings, then working as a ward clerk secretary, working as a bed coordinator and winning a Presidents Award for her work, and finally to her current position as the switchboard operator for calls to the hospital. 

I began the next day by going over to the hospital for my 6th oral history interview with a Multimedia Consultant who previously was the director of the hospital-based childhood development center. We talked about her time as the director, the history of the center, and its eventual closing in 1997 then got into her experience with media. Both interviews were very interesting looks into the different sides of Carilion technology, which is indispensable in keeping the hospital running smoothly. 

To finish the week, I went with my supervisor to the basement of the Medical Center to meet up with two former nurses and graduates of the Roanoke Memorial School of Nursing to examine what was in their storage space from the school. We found an old registry, grade book type of thing from 1906-1909, yearbooks, pictures from the 1930s-1970s, among many other things that we will begin to sift through and organize next week. 

These two weeks were focused around researching the history Carilion’s cardiovascular surgery unit (and the multitude of programs that are interwoven into the unit). Once I researched enough to formulate two sets of questions, I began preparing for my interviews with the lead Clinical Nursing Specialist for 40 years and the doctor who founded the Cardiovascular surgery program. 

I first interviewed the nurse and was able to hear about how much the technology and unit has changed and advanced. I also learned about the Mended Hearts Quilts Program. Those who undergo heart surgery at Carilion are sent a patch to design and send back, where it is then added onto a quilt and hung in the hospital. 

The second interview was even more interesting, as I was able to hear a firsthand account of beginning a heart surgery program at a hospital, then seeing it grow and help so many people around the Roanoke Valley. We talked about the Operating Room with Carilion’s cutting edge technological abilities to perform incredibly complicated and intricate surgeries. It was such an eye opening conversation. 

My first day of my fourth week at Carilion began with my second interview. I interviewed an employee of over forty year who has worked as in the Planning and Community Development department and as a consultant for a number of different departments and projects within Carilion.  We spoke about projects  she been been apart of and the many changes that she has seen in time with Carilion. After the interview, I transcribed the recording, edited the transcript, and began research for the next candidate. 

The rest of the week, I scheduled two more interviews with long-time employees in cardiac surgery and began to do background research for questions in the interview. 

In between researching, I was given collections of picture to archive in a binder. It is always really interesting seeing how different pictures from the late ‘90s are from those of today

This week the Roberson Project interns went on a research trip to Nashville. First we visited Fort Negley, which was built by the union army during the occupation of Nashville during the Civil War. Interestingly, after the war the area around the fort became a community for recently freed enslaved people during reconstruction, which is a part of the fort’s history which has been given much more focus in recent years. The park staff also practice sustainable groundskeeping by allowing goats to graze on the site, which is not very historically relevant, but interesting nonetheless. After that we went to the Tennessee state archives to see if we could find any more information about the Kennerley School or Belmont club. The next day I participated in Sewanee’s “SURF research frenzy,” where the Roberson interns presented posters we made about our projects. There were a lot of people at this event, and I spoke to a lot of other students and community members about what research we’ve done and what else we hope to achieve. Lastly we worked with a ground penetrating radar specialist from UTK to take some additional scans of the site, which we think will be more informative than our initial ones.

I have learned two ways the NSLM goes about cataloging depending on what is being cataloged—one through the material housed in the archives and books for public viewing on the shelves.

I got the extraordinary opportunity to work on and create a new catalog for a large & wonderful donation of a collection of original materials from the start of the National Beagle Club of America headquarters in Aldie. The owners donated to the NSLM a six-figure gift to catalog and digitize the National Beagle Club of America collection. This meant that this project became a priority in the library. The first step before digitizing the material is to create a new catalog for the collection within the archives. This consisted of a Word document telling the viewer each individual donated material given by the National Beagle Club of America. It also shows the viewer where the donation was donated by, the date range of the material, the historical note, and a statement of what the collection consists of. Then each item is broken up into categories under specific headings provided with details of each section. Lastly, those categories are broken up further showing each item, with the box number of where it will be housed, the material name (stating if it is a book, scrapbook, minute book, record, scrapbook, or letter), and the date range.

There were several challenges that I faced throughout the process of cataloging this collection. I had to review each item to determine the date range, which required detective skills to read through the pages to find the date. I also had to make sure what was stated in the index was what was discussed in the body of the book. Another struggle I faced was trying to read the cursive handwriting of these individuals; since I had not adequately learned cursive in school, I struggled with being able to read it. The last challenge I faced throughout the cataloging process was figuring out what categories I was going to create and where each of those items would go.

The other form of cataloging is using a particular cataloging system to catalog books or partials. This is a process that I have learned in earlier weeks of my internship, although this time, I had full rein to do it on my own with some guidance. This required me to fill in the specific fields with the designated material stated in the book, such as the title, alternative title (if stated), author, date, publisher, location of publication, physical description (write out index if stated), and subject field. Then after filling out the fields, I had to create the specific barcode for the book and the identification number.

This week we spent out time cataloging and bagging the cleaned artifacts. Each artifact or set of artifacts is placed into a bag with information about the site, which shovel test the artifact came from, excavation date, and a brief description. This process can be quite tedious, since dozens of bags have be labeled with only a line or two of information changing between bags, but we need to do our due diligence to make sure everything is accurate. It is important to catalog and bag artifacts in this way in order to make sure every piece of information about the artifact is on record and preserved. We also helped set up the St. Marks community center for the 4th of July, and had the rest of the day off afterwards, which was a nice break.

My first day of my fourth week at Carilion began with my second interview. I interviewed an employee of over forty year who has worked as in the Planning and Community Development department and as a consultant for a number of different departments and projects within Carilion.  We spoke about projects  she been been apart of and the many changes that she has seen in time with Carilion. After the interview, I transcribed the recording, edited the transcript, and began research for the next candidate. 

The rest of the week, I scheduled two more interviews with long-time employees in cardiac surgery and began to do background research for questions in the interview. 

In between researching, I was given collections of picture to archive in a binder. For the archiving process, I seperated the negatives and the pictures and put them into their protective folders, labeled each folder with the name of collection, and stored them in their protective binders. It is always really interesting seeing how different pictures from the late ‘90s are from those of today.