Part of my daily routine, I begin my day with checking in my workback plan or Ganett chart to check the expected due dates of my assigned tasks. My primary responsibilities and duties include managing TWM’s social media, performing administrative tasks, curatorial research, providing public programming support, organizing the Block by Block Party and leading Programming Committee meeting.
Days at AM&A have been really varied. June was a really busy month for us, with the launch of our website, the opening of our summer exhibit, and the launch of an online exhibit with an associated community event hosted by us, on top of the usual responsibilities of the museum and archives. I am usually one of the first people into the office, so I try to do desk work for the first hour of my day (brainstorming and writing for our weekly column in the local paper, researching for reference requests, etc.). Then depending on what’s a priority that day or week I might be working anywhere: accessioning materials in the office, inventorying and reorganizing in the collections rooms, monitoring the environment in off-site storage locations, installing temporary or seasonal exhibits on and off-site, or working in the archives. I also sometimes attend meetings relating to projects I’m working on or record-keeping and records management at the Town of Aurora (a “bonus” to supplement my learning in the Masters of Information program).
Every day can be a little different which keeps me on my toes! The Academic Resource Center Office (ARC), where I am based, handles all the museum’s academic appointments. My main responsibilities are to facilitate a smooth on-boarding and exiting experience for the museum’s interns and fellows, but also to serve as source of support throughout their placement. Specifically, I hold orientation sessions on a weekly basis for new appointees and assist in aspects of their security clearance. Near their appointment end date, I am responsible for holding exit meetings and doing informal program evaluations. As part of the ARC team, I also assist my team members to coordinate and conduct behind the scenes tours of collections and projects within the museum. As a team, through orientation sessions, tours and events, we help create a sense of community for interns and fellows in the museum.
Please forgive the cliché but there is no typical day for me at the OSC, and I am beginning to believe this is true of all museums. The only constancy here seems to be the daily routine of checking your email account to accept meeting requests. My title at the OSC is “Artifacts Intern” and the majority of my responsibilities fall under Collections Management. Yes, you heard that right, the OSC does have a collection. Our main project has been an inventory and reorganization of the collection, increasing the care given to the objects as we go along. I have also been fortunate to participate in content research for the refresh of a permanent gallery. Although I have these main projects, challenges arise and new projects prop up, making no day quite like the others.
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| Susan at Toronto Ward Museum's "Not Just Numbers" event in Ottawa at the Global Centre for Pluralism. |
What is something you have learned (this could be museums related or not) in your internship so far?
Susan: Co-developing public programs with migrant communities is often not discussed in class. So to be able to relate to what I’ve learned in class is difficult. In class, we learn about working with objects, not with people. This is usually with the assumption that we would work in a mid to large sized museum in the future. Although many museums focus on different aspects of human migration using objects as a medium to convey stories of human migration, very few museums focus on working with human storytellers. I enjoy working with the stories of the people because there is so much one can learn and benefit from.
Maeghan: Both my experience with the Zoo strike and my time at AM&A have really emphasized the importance of being flexible and open to changing your plans. With school I like to really immerse myself in one project and focus on finishing that before moving onto something else, but that isn’t possible in a small museum. There are so many things happening at once, and everyone is juggling their own schedules daily to make sure that we can finish what needs to get done. It also pays when we run into challenges, which were especially frequent during the installation of the current exhibit,
Aurora Canada’s Birthday Town. Being able to let go of plans when they didn’t work out allowed us to move forward quickly and find solutions.
Cassy: In regards to the larger institutional picture, I have learned how vitally important museums can be in expanding fields of research and science by creating an academic ladder for blossoming scientists and museum professionals. I have also learned through coordinating intern tours and orientation sessions that cross-communication with individuals in different departments is necessary to create excellent academic programs.
Tanya: This may seem self-evident, but what I have learned so far is how much work goes into creating a new permanent gallery! Developing a permanent gallery is, in some ways, a museum’s way of going back to the drawing board. It is a chance for the museum to revisit its collections, freshen up the gallery themes, incorporate new research, and make the museum relevant for a new generation. Since a gallery may remain the same for twenty years or more, there is a lot of pressure to get it right. This means that every effort is taken to create the right themes, chose the perfect artifacts, argue over the right word on a label, and present it all in a fun and informative way. Before this internship, I don’t think I fully understood the effort that went into re-designing a permanent gallery or the high stakes that were involved.
Emily: How to fold a box! Increasing the care for objects in the collection has required the folding of many boxes. Sometimes they come with instructions, often times they do not. It has taken practice to be able to look at a flat box, figure out how it goes together and do it quickly. We joke this would be one of the tasks we would have if we ever created our own Museum/Art Handling Olympics.
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| Maeghan installing vinyl wall panels for a summer exhibit at Aurora Museum & Archives. |
What is something that has surprised you about museums that you did not know before working in a real one?
Susan: What surprised me is TWM’s earnest willingness to work with migration stories, since not many museums work with migration stories and actively collaborate with the storytellers. At TWM, the ideas presented by the communities are prioritized during the developmental process of public programs. As a community-engaged and migration museum, the exhibitions and programs are developed around migration stories and storytelling. As a result, the Ward Museum provides a public platform to the voices of Canadian newcomers. All of the Ward’s public programs are developed around migration as a premise. The public programs are not just developed by the museum staff but also are co-developed by the communities the Ward serves and works with. I feel that this is something museums do not often do. They create the public programs first and then involve the people, whereas this is a reserve process for TWM. The core principle the Ward Museum emphasizes is inclusion.
Maeghan: I am endlessly impressed by the amount that can be accomplished by a small team. Up until April, my supervisor was the only employee of the museum. Since then, the team has grown to include a second permanent employee, a full-time summer student, a part-time summer student, and me. Even with this growth, we have work coming out of our ears! I have no idea how the curator got so much done on her own.
Cassy: It has been a pleasant surprise to witness the passion that the Natural History Museum staff and researchers come to work with seemingly everyday. Their dedication and willingness to share is truly inspiring.
Tanya: Although not a surprise, the biggest adjustment for me when dealing with archaeological collections in museums is to remember that these pieces will be put on display. This means that only the “best examples” of any group of objects, such as, for instance, whole ceramic vessels or metal objects with little corrosion, will do for display purposes. What will be put on display and, consequently, what stories will be told, will depend on the vagaries of the state of preservation of any given archaeological context! Rather than thinking about the objects as a collective whole, I need to remind myself to treat the artifacts like individual pieces of art with their own unique histories.
Emily: I feel like I must have known this was true, but I never genuinely realized the extent to which building an exhibition or permanent gallery is a team effort until being part of a project at the OSC. There are so many details and considerations that go into building an exhibition that I had never realized before from my perspective as a visitor or a Museum Studies student. Building a team that has a diverse set of skills to complete all of the tasks required is essential, as well as having a project manager adept at keeping the project on track and ensuring the outputs of the group form a coherent end-product.
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| Cassy in the rotunda of the Museum of Natural History with Henry the elephant! |
What is an obstacle you have faced during your internship and how did you overcome it?
Susan: Emails! Emails! Emails! Putting a professional email draft together was difficult at first. When I put an email together, I always ask myself, does the email contain all of the necessary information? Is it polite? Is it professional? So…..at what point in my email relationships can I use my signature smiley face emoji? The few times I’ve drafted an email, I’ve asked my supervisor to check before I send the email to project partners and team members. But now, I’m pro in emails!
Maeghan: Seeing my internship with the Toronto Zoo fall apart when CUPE Local 1600 went on strike was easily the hardest thing that I have dealt with this summer. I was really excited to spend my summer surrounded by animals. I had also built my summer plans around the timeline and work schedule I had negotiated with the Zoo. Finding a new internship halfway through May was a daunting task, and has created a lot of annoying repercussions in my academic and personal life, but I am ultimately satisfied with the way things worked out. I am learning so much from AM&A, and have had the opportunity to engage with a really broad range of functions in the museum and the archives. If I could go back and make a different decision, I would apply to AM&A from the very beginning!
Cassy: I found it difficult to be away from loved ones during my internship.
Tanya: I was once a student at the University of Pennsylvania and spent many, many days in the Penn Museum library. Some of the Museum staff and curators have only known me as a student. So, one of the things I’ve had to overcome is the perception of me as a student (to myself and others) and to think of myself as a museum professional in training. Some simple ways I overcame this perception was to dress up every day, approach people as equals, ask to participate in meetings, reach out to staff I did not know previously, and to treat my internship as a 9 to 5 job.
Emily: My Microsoft Excel skills were definitely a little rusty at the beginning and still today there are many functions I don’t know about the program! Building spreadsheets is an important part of Collections Management in my opinion, as Excel easily allows you to organize data. Understanding where to turn for help, whether that be Google or your most proficient desk mate in the case of Excel woes, is key to overcoming any obstacle.
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| Tanya in action at Penn Museum. |
What are some suggestions/advice you would give to a future intern who is hypothetically starting their internship in the same role as you?
Susan: Don’t be shy to ask questions! Be assertive! Know your limits before saying yes to everything! And most of all, enjoy the learning process.
Maeghan: Be open to trying anything that’s offered to you! I started my internship hoping to build my experience in collections management, and that has certainly happened. But I’ve taken an “I’ll give it a shot!” attitude to everything AM&A has offered to me, and I’ve learned so much, both in terms of how to do things, but also in terms of what I do and don’t like. Communication in my institution is really open, so it’s not hard for me to try something and then at the end of the task say, “I don’t think this is for me,” and ask to do something else. And of course, along with the “something I learned,” stay flexible!
Cassy: For future interns whose placement is out of the country, I recommend keeping busy, remember why you're doing your internship and understand that now is the best time and place to make friends and connections. Go out for drinks with your co-workers and if there are socials at your museum or institution be sure to attend!
Tanya: Take advantage of every opportunity offered to meet new people, go on behind-the-scenes tours of different parts of the museum, and attend presentations on various topics. You’ll learn so much about the culture and history of the museum. Also, don’t be afraid to ask to participate in meetings or to take on a new task. People are generally happy to teach you – and remember, you’re helping them too!
Emily: Buff up on your artifact handling skills and packaging skills. A large part of my internship has been moving artifacts and packaging them to increase their care. Knowing how best to pick up and move an object is key as well as learning how to give the best care you can to the object with the archival materials at hand or within your means. Additionally, something I hope to do more of and would suggest to anyone else entering this collections management internship, is reading as much of the CCI’s Agents of Deterioration and preservation notes as you can. Knowing how a variety of material types will age & deteriorate and the preventive measures we can take is key to any collections management role.
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| Emily taking a desk selfie! |
What’s your passion?
Susan: My passion is to give a voice to the people who were systemically excluded from museum settings. To work with migration stories and empower the storytellers, by telling them your migration story matters!
Maeghan: So vague! In relation to my program at the iSchool, I’m really interested in convergence of libraries, archives, and museums as information institutions. I also love organizing things, researching, and baking. This summer has also highlighted my tendency to wear black, which shows all the dirt and dust I inevitably come across in the basement corners of the historic building the museum is housed in.
Cassy: I am passionate about the potential museums hold for benefiting the public and academia. I love sharing the knowledge that a collection can hold and the stories they can tell, whether that is with academic appointees or with the public.
Tanya: My passion is archaeology, history, and working with material culture. Sometimes, in storage, I just touch interesting artifacts, just because I can! I guess it’s a bit cliché, but the reason I love handling artifacts is because, when you do, you are “touching history.” My job as a museum professional, as I see it, is to transmit the awe and excitement I feel about an artifact to the museum-going public so that people can feel the same emotions too.
Emily: Science! I feel like anyone in the program who knows me would hear me saying this exclamation way too often. Although my background is in life and medical sciences, I am especially interested in how objects from all disciplines can be used to communicate scientific concepts to audiences and to build a variety of skills in visitors. Through this internship I have reinforced a belief that I can best aid this mission by providing collections management care to scientific collections and balancing the need for preservation and use of these objects.
Thank you Susan, Maeghan, Cassy, Tanya and Emily for participating in these interviews for our last internship check-in. I've really enjoyed getting to compile these chats and to see how unique each internship experience has been. See everyone in a few weeks when classes begin!
