Archives and Adventures: Display Day success

It's with a bittersweet smile that I realize I am done with my internship in a week. This month in particular seems to have run away without me. In the past three weeks I have answered approximately fifty digital reference questions, registered at least 15 new researchers, pulled material from more than thirty different collections and had some lovely visitors and fun outings along the way.

This past Wednesday we had the "crown jewel" of the internship program, Display Day. All 38 of us Junior Fellows were able to show off our work in the 26 projects we have been working on since week 1. The process of getting to this day was a long and involved one - but great as I really got to see what goes into developing a exhibit. First, as fellows, we were asked to pick a few items that best displayed our work, we had to propose the items to the Display Day Committee and once we were approved, we had to clear all the items with conservation to make sure they were aptly protected on the day. We also wrote labels to accompany our items and had those proofread by exhibit staff at the Library and then we had to make sure our "blurb" was ready for the day and look up a few extra details to flesh the whole thing out. On Tuesday we had a rehearsal day to set up our tables and then the acting Librarian of Congress, David Mao, came and visited each one of our tables and listened as we described our projects and items on display.

On the actual day, we were set up and ready to go by 9, when the photographer from the Library and the video team arrived to get some extra footage. We opened to Library staff, congressional members (not that I remember seeing any, especially since Congress isn't in session), and friends and family at 10 AM and were pretty much continuously presenting to anyone who passed by our table until we closed at 3. I did get to have a lunch break, thank goodness! And it was a wonderful treat to be able to share both the Day and lunch with my Grandma, who drove from Baltimore to visit. Interestingly, when my friend Katie (the intern in the Manuscript preparation section) went to lunch, I was responsible for manning her exhibit and trying to describe her project to passer by's. It was fun to describe the process of how a collection arrives at the Library in disarray and then an archivist reads through and creates an organization system, then the rehousing of the materials and typing a finding aid so researchers will be able to navigate the collection.

Our display (pictures below), was centered on William T. Hornaday, for those of you who haven't read the previous blog posts. He was responsible for creating life-like exhibits in the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in the 1880's and 1890's and was sent to the west in 1886 to retrieve specimens of Buffalo for the museum. The whole exhibit centered on the journal we have of his from that 1886 expedition that is a new acquisition of the Library and has never before been displayed. Trying to link the materials on the table, however, to my actual project, which was reference, was a tad difficult. I liked to always start my schpeal with letting the person know that I worked as a reference intern in the Manuscript Reading Room and that the items on the table were just a small representation of what I've gotten to work with this summer. And that's absolutely true!

My reference highlights this week are mostly generated by the email reference questions this week than researcher interaction. I am particularly proud of finding an unpublished manuscript titled "An Enlisted Man in the Chancellorsville Campaign" from the Civil War. The manuscript, penned by Lucius Swift, seemed not to exist on its own in the Library catalog, nor did the Manuscript Division have his papers in custody. Doing what any self-respecting reference librarian would do at that point, I turned to Google to try and see if there was a footnote, reference, anything mention at all of it online. Every time I typed in some variant of the title, I would get a few references to a book titled "The Campaign of Chancellorsville" by John Bigelow which was published in 1910. I took a chance, and typed his name into the Library's catalog search and sure enough, we did have his papers on-site at the Library. I figured it was a long shot, but I pulled up the finding aid to the collection and searched for Chancellorsville among the papers - there was a box that contained notes for his book. I went over to the stacks and started searching through that particular box. It was incredible the letters he had from people who were present at the Battle of Chancellorsville and for the Campaign and their recollections would take up letters of 10 pages or more. One man recalled that he wasn't sure if Gen. Joseph Hooker was sleepy or drunk that day! Finally, after about 10 minutes of rifling through, I discovered a letter written by Lucius Swift to John Bigelow and attached was an excerpt of his Manuscript! Win!

I was so excited that I found it and was a bit disappointed that I couldn't reveal my whole saga to the writer of the email inquiry, just because of how cool it was. Nevertheless, the recipient was very thankful and I felt like a history sleuthing boss yet again. :) I'm going to be sad to say goodbye next week to the awesome people I've met through this 10 week journey - especially all the reference librarians I work beside everyday. But in a week I will be home, and as much as I love DC - there is something about Columbia that just makes it home.