Week 7: Halfway Through, Still Lots to Do!

I am officially halfway through my practicum working hours! In the morning, we had our 50-hour visit from Dr. Boon, my academic advisor. It was so great to be able to show her what I've done and share with her how proud I am of my project. I was able to show her the Byrd Polar Media website and, in particular, the artifacts' site that I've been creating.  It was a very encouraging moment in my practicum because I was able to get some great feedback and even some compliments!  Dr. Boon is encouraging my supervisor Laura and I to write an article after the project finishes to be submitted to a journal.  This is one of the first projects of its kind and we both agreed that it would be an excellent publishing opportunity.  



The rest of the morning was spent unloading another box and getting back to work.  I began to pull some paintings and sketches from the stacks and enjoyed the change of pace.  Though I loved looking at the old radios and kits, it was nice to encounter the other formats.  I began to see how the curator of a special collections must be a Jack of All Trades and have some sort of familiarity with everything: documents, film, photographs, art, 3-D objects, etc.  


We had a "working lunch" of sorts, as we went over to the actual Byrd Polar Research Center for a cook-out.  Though there was no actual digitizing or photographing involved, I felt like this was a big step in my practicum experience.  I was able to meet people who were involved with the "front-of-house" view of the Byrd Center, including the center's librarian.  It was a great opportunity to see how the Polar Archives fits within the Byrd Center and how they support each other, despite being two completely separate departments.  It was one of my first experiences seeing a different part of The Ohio State University and it helped my perspective of the overarching structure of the libraries, archives, and organizations.


The afternoon was spent finishing two boxes of artwork.  I practiced some additional reference tasks, as the paintings' relevance to the collection was unknown.  Three paintings required the most reference.  The first was a painting of a young girl.  There was no annotation or caption attached to it and it was unclear who the girl was or why it was part of the Byrd collection.  A sticker on the back had the following written on it: "Eigentum des Grafen Maximilian Alfred von Beroldingen." After using the Google language tool, I found the translation: "Property of Count Alfred von Maximilian Beroldingen."  I searched this same phrase, both in German and in English, and found another painting with the same property tag on an auction website (Portrait of a Man with a Little Book in Hand).  I also tried searching his name, Count Alfred von Maximilian Beroldingen, but it did not result in anything substantial.  Though I was frustrated with this, I had much more luck with my other two pieces of art.


It was clear that both drawings "Albert Read" and "Louis Bleriot" were created by the same person and included in the same collection, as they are both very similar.  The first drawing, titled "Lieut-Commander Albert C. Read Nears Azores in a Navy Plane", did not mean anything to me at first.  I did not know who Read was or what his relevance to Richard Byrd was.  After some searching, I realized that this drawing portrayed the first successful trans-atlantic flight in the Navy's NC flying boats.  There were 4 planes (NC-1, NC-2, NC-3, and NC-4) with NC-4 being the only successful one, flown by Albert Read.  Richard Byrd had assisted in planning the trip and even accompanied Read for parts of it.  The second drawing is titled "Louis Blériot Passes the White Cliffs of Dover in May, 1909" and depicts the first flight across the English Channel.  Though there was not a direct connection with Richard Byrd, the pilots had a very tight-knit circle and were often close friends.  


Both drawings were done by Frank Lemon and were copyrighted by the Wright Aeronautical Corporation in 1928.  Due to the year not being within the time period of Public Domain, I was worried about posting them online.  I spoke with Laura regarding this issue, which is a very common issue in digitization, and she stated that this falls under Fair Use and that I should not be worried.  It was a great discussion and I felt that I had enough knowledge of the subject that I could actively participate in the conversation.  This is yet another experience that has made me feel more confident in my knowledge base and skill set.


Since I spent so long researching these last two drawings, I felt that a special bibliographic note should be added to the records.  I added a few websites, including the Library of Congress' catalog record for Frank Lemon's book and pages from the U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission's website.  I was careful in choosing to share resources that were legitimate and seemed permanent in an effort to provide literate and thorough information.  This is another example of putting my knowledge and skills to use.


Overall, I was thrilled to have began a new category of artifacts.  There are several more boxes full of drawings, sketchers, and paintings, which will make for a very fun next few weeks.

In: 8 a.m.

Out: 5 p.m.
On-site hours completed today: 9
On-site hours completed total: 52.75
On-site hours left: 47.25