It's Not All Fun and Games!

My most recent week at LancasterHistory.org was not really as bad as my title suggests. But it did have its moments of frustration and bouts of mundane work. On Tuesday, the portraiture exhibit was scheduled to go up. My supervisor expected that I would help with that, so he left no further instructions for me. Made sense.  However, other than cleaning some plexiglass covers, they were never quite ready for my assistance before it was time for me to leave. So I spent most of my day helping in the archives sticking numbered dots on boxes. I needed something to do and the archivist was right there working alongside of me. LancasterHistory.org is preparing to move back to what they call the "Lancaster Campus of History" in January. Currently, they are located on the square in Lancaster until the expansion is complete. So to help the movers put the boxes back in the correct order, the archivists have been color-coding and numbering their collections. I also helped to transcribe one entry from a journal of S. S. Rathvon. That was certainly good practice in reading difficult handwriting! It was also an amusing task considering Rathvon's extreme lack of humility.

On Thursday, frustrations abounded. The laptop with all of my saved documents refused to connect to the internet, so I was unable to export the needed information to the director. After struggling for a while, I was given another computer to use that was equipped with Windows 2000. I'll just say that I am now very thankful for my more recent Windows Vista program, even if it is flawed! It took approximately two hours to complete a ten minute task. Later, when the curator arrived, I learned that he had already done what I had been attempting to complete. It happens. Thankfully, in order to redeem my frustrating morning, I was able to move on to research a few small details about people connected to certain objects in the collection. That was successful and turned a gloomy day into a bright one! 

Even still, with frustrations and mundane tasks, I am grateful for everything I am learning and for the opportunity I have to intern here. I look forward to what the next week brings!