Final countdown!

So, I’m in the final stretch.Less than 3 weeks until I return home, which is bittersweet. I do miss home, though. I’m not sure about other internships, but even if I wanted to stay, I don’t think there’s a job coming at the end of this for me here in DC. I need to go home anyway, because to get a job like mine I really need to go to grad school in addition to working. I’m pretty sure I have a job at home for me, which I find comforting.

This week was pretty quiet, but I got to work on a bunch of small collections. I’ve started and finished over four or five different small collections. I was able to work with beautiful salt print photographs of drawings of the U.S. Capitol Dome. I’ve also been able to work with a few collections made up of glass plate negatives. Being from the digital era, and not really a camera person myself, it’s really interesting to see these beautiful 8x10 glass plate negatives.

 

I’ve been able to re-house these plates in appropriate archival housing but with old glass plates come the possibility for broken glass. In those cases, I have to make sink mats, which are literally mats made of blue board that the glass sinks into, as you see here

The non-broken glass plates were put into acid-free negative folders and put into conveniently sized boxes, which is one of my favorite parts of archiving.

So that’s been my week. This weekend was far less exciting than last. I did check out Phase 1 with my friend Sabrina, but it was not quite what I was hoping for. As the weather fluctuates, I hope to be able to check out the Arlington Cemetery by my next post. Also, I'd like to finally visit some other Smithsonian locations, (since there are actually 16 different ones).

Til then...

~K