AUGUST INTERNSHIP CHECK-IN

Internship Check-In | Annie McCarron

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For August I got to chat with Jaime and Hanna, who are both completing their internships remotely from Toronto.


Jaime Meier is completing her internship with a Professor in the Drama and Performing Arts Department within the University of Toronto.


AM: Tell me a bit about the work you are doing for your internship this summer?


Jaime: My internship transitioned from a work study I completed in the fall. The Professor I am working with focuses on 17th century Indigenous and French relations in regards to performance. I have done a lot of work with 17th C. Indigenous accounts and explorers, so it tied in well with my knowledge. The Professor had grant money to go to Paris and do research in the archives for a book. Due to COVID19 we had to make changes to our summer plans so this summer has been finding other things to do. Instead of cancelling the internship my supervisor has found other things for me to do. A lot of my work has been with copyright and image permissions which is something that I wanted to learn about. Having worked in museums before, when they are developing exhibitions I have heard about the challenges around image permissions and rights, and the price of using these images. This summer I have been trying to figure out what images to use, working with different institutions across the world. It has provided me with a case study in copyright and permission in different places. In Canada and the U.S. it can be very expensive, from $60 to well over $100. In France and the U.K. it is more like 5 euro/pounds or no licensing fee at all. It's been interesting to see how they treat academics. In Europe, even though it's commercial, they know it's for use in something academic and for the public so they charge less. They just want a small amount to keep their institution going or a free copy of the book with the images in it when the professor is done and that’s all they expect. I have looked at images from institutions in Toronto that the rights are well over 100 dollars! My supervisor gave me a list of images but I have gotten to help curate the final selection for the book, I help to decide which ones end up in the book and where they go. If it will be a full image, or in black and white or in colour. I have a great supervisor who trusts me.


I have also done a lot of transcription work, taking French documents and writing them up. It's really strange looking at old French from the 17th c. it's really different, it can sometimes look like typos but I just transcribe it as I see it. It's been great also working on my French skills as I have always wanted that experience.


AM: What’s something useful that you have learned from your internship? 

Unicorn of the Red Sea, n.d. Photo courtesy of  Louis Nicolas Life & Work

Jaime: I liked hunting down an image and almost negotiating for the rights. I think this skill will help me with my work with museums. I know copyright can be really stressful and I did not have a lot of experience in it, but now I feel a lot more confident when people ask me what they can do with certain images. Even for my own work, knowing the limits of what you can do with an image is extremely useful.


AM: What is the main focus of the images you are researching?


Jaime: We are doing research looking at Indigenous performance and ceremonies, how it has been recorded by Jesuit missionaries, and how it has influenced European forms of dance. We have been working with members of the Haudenosaunee community to make sure we are not crossing any boundaries since we are talking about their ceremonies and we don't want to include anything that we shouldn't. We ran into this issue where we almost included a sacred ceremony that they did not want included, because it was never supposed to be recorded. So we have taken that out and we are working with the community to see what they want. The last thing we want to do is perpetuate what the Jesuits did and just record anything and everything.


AM: Do you have any  interesting images you have found through through your research you can share with us?

Jaime: Unicorn of the Red Sea by Louis Nicolas. The context is when he was in "New France" the Jesuit Missionary Louis Nicolas recorded hundreds of animals and plants and then threw in a unicorn, and claimed to have seen the unicorn with his own eyes!

AM: Have you encountered any challenges in your work?


Jaime: I find working from home extremely challenging, I like being able to work from a different space or with someone else. It's nice that I have flexible work hours, but it's hard to stay focused at home because you can’t escape other work and chores. I also miss the camaraderie of office spaces. My supervisor is amazing but it would be nice to see people everyday and check-in.

Hanna Schacter is currently doing her summer internship at the Ontario Jewish Archives and the Neuburger Holocaust Education Centre.


AM: Tell me a bit about the work you are doing for your internship this summer?


Hanna: I am working for two institutions, the Ontario Jewish Archives and the Nueberger Holocaust Centre. I have been working on three different projects, one for the Ontario Jewish Archives and two for the Holocaust Centre. I am enrolled in the Collaborative Specialization in Jewish Studies, and as part of those requirements I needed to do my internship at a Jewish Institution. I had solidified an internship in early March, before the pandemic and luckily they were able to keep me as an intern.


For the Ontario Jewish Archives, I am working through creating a digital version of their Stories of Spadina Walking Tour. The tour has been run for over 40 years since the 1970s and tells the Jewish History of Kensington Market and the early settlement of Jewish people in Toronto and the surrounding areas. I started by reviewing the content of the tour, as well as looking at other digital tours to see what was out there and what would work for us. I got to interview the 5 amazing tour guides who have been doing the tours for years. I had a list of questions that I asked to gain their insight. From there I took all that information and thought about the common themes. Then I developed what I think will work on the digital version. Now we are waiting for tour guides to write different sections of the stops and I have been going through the Ontario Jewish Archives and the Toronto Star archives to find pictures to go along with the digital stops. From my work this summer I discovered that I love working with archival collections and looking at old pictures.


For the Neuberger Holocaust Centre I am doing research on young professional programming. They currently have a great young professional program unlike any other institution, and I have been gathering information to see how other places have been handling similar programming during COVID19, and what sort of changes they have made to online.


For my third project I am doing some collection development for the Neuberger Holocaust Centre. They have plans to open a new physical museum in the future, so I have been going through their archives to see what exhibiting content there is that is useful, the interpretive elements available, and what common themes they cover. I am also researching other holocaust museums and what they cover, what pieces and artifacts they use to tell stories. This project has been more on hold because of COVID19, as I have not been able to talk to as many people and conduct the necessary research due to the pandemic.



AM: What are you most excited to accomplish?


Hanna: For my exhibition project in the fall I will actually be able to continue with the walking tour that I am doing and continuing working through it, it will be great because I get to see what it will become. I would love to do some user testing once the website is launched and also make some educational resources to go along with the tour. I have really enjoyed doing the research for it and finding the archival materials, I get really fascinated looking at old photos and I love Kensington Market too. It is a place that I have grown up going and now get to learn about the Jewish history of it too. It has been a home to so many different commutes and still is.



AM: Any advice for future people in your position?


Hanna: For anyone taking on a remote internship, I would say communicate — a lot. I regret not communicating more at certain times. I think also that you should never be afraid to ask for help! I have also learned more technical stuff about archives, and I have become a better researcher throughout this internship. I have had an amazing supervisor who is an archivist at the OJA. We have weekly calls checking in and seeing where I am at, she has been very helpful especially if I am unsure if something is useful or not, I will present to her and she will give me great feedback about my work.


AM: What skills have you employed from classwork?


Hanna: I took the User Experience for Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museum course and it is always in the back of my mind now, whenever I do anything for the public. Even at the start, doing research about different walking tours I am constantly thinking about the users, what are their needs, ease of use, site accessibility issues. I also took the Public Programming and Education course, where we learned about tours and the different elements to set up a tour. Certain questions to keep in mind: what are we learning here? What is our theme? These helped guide my research for the walking tours.


AM: Any interesting stories from the walking tours you would like to share? 

Augusta Fruit Market, August 1956.

 Ontario Jewish Archives, accession 2006-1-3

Hanna: The tour guides told me that everyone has a fish in the bath story. Before Shabbat people would buy fish and they didn’t have anywhere to keep it but their bathtub. Someone had a story where they were about to hop in the bath and there was a fish. I liked this story because I think it conveys the hustle and bustle of how Kensington Market is. Not sure how true the story is but it is something that has been passed along.

AM: What interesting facts have you learned?


Hanna: I have learned some interesting institutional history about organizations that the Jewish Community have established that still live on. On Cecil Street the Jewish old folks home was established in the early 1900s, which is now Baycrest Centre. Places have moved out of the Kensington Market area but are still going strong and serving the community. I have always felt that being Jewish you care for your community, and that was so true with everyone coming here to Toronto, and establishing themselves, and helping each other when they got here. These stories of care and serving the community are well documented within the archives.