Monday, June 27 (10:00 - 5:30)
- labeled a diving helmet with its catalog number while it was still in the “Commercial Diving” exhibit
- attended my first staff meeting from 10:30-12:30; i appreciated being included in the meeting, as I want to be on the same page as everyone else during my time here; we had a “rundown” printed out and each staff member shared important information and gave progress reports; I talked briefly about why I am here and what I’m doing (the other staff members knew surprisingly little about that); it was interesting to see the dynamics of the interpersonal relationships in full-swing; it seems at this point to be that the less people you have on your staff, the harder it is to have an idea approved by the “majority”; it becomes too personal if something doesn’t go your way
- permanently mounted the HOBO data loggers to the walls in the library, collections storage and exhibit galleries; always love an opportunity to use power tools!
- filed away various completed items from last week into the “archives”
- went on a search for 12 missing diving hoods in the collections storage; found 11 of them (and I think the other is installed in an exhibit); labeled their boxes with their accession number and grouped them together so they aren’t lost again; consequently, this eliminated some “Found In Collections” material, which is always a good thing
- sorted through a bunch of books intended for the library; determined which ones were relevant to the mission of the museum (a lot weren’t); started a “rummage sale” pile for the ones that aren’t going in the library (an excellent fundraiser idea floating around the museum)
- plugged in the data loggers to the computer for the first time since Thursday; MASSIVE fluctuations in temperature and relative humidity; it changes as much as 10 degrees every single day; it is actually warmer at night (getting up to 83 degrees) because the air conditioner is turned off after the museum closes
After-work activities
- Erin has me hooked on coffee (after only one day) thanks to the amaretto creamer at the museum; I immediately went to the store and bought some after work, as well as coffee grinds; this turned into my first ever coffee making experience; my first batch was a miserable failure (I put the water in the wrong place in Mr. Coffee), but after watching a Youtube video on how to make coffee, I was good to go!; I can’t believe I spent 26 years of my life not drinking coffee
Tuesday, June 28 (10:00-5:30)
- this was the first rainy day in the Keys (torrential downpour ALL day) and it had a fascinating effect on business; most of the staff members couldn’t believe how many visitors we had (75) and think it may be close to the all-time one day record; goes to show how difficult it is for the museum to compete with all the natural splendors of the Keys
- sorted more potential library books; when I finished, I assigned catalog numbers to those books destined for the library, took their pictures and created PastPerfect records for all of them; there were also several magazines and videos that I performed these same tasks on, although they are considered “archives” and not part of the library; they were included as part of the same accession however, and are linked to the other books in PastPerfect
- one of the cool features of PastPerfect when you are inputting books is a link to the Library of Congress online catalog; it allows you to find all sorts of infromation on a particular book and is especially helpful if you are creating a library, as it tells you the call # and basically what order to put your books in; I copy and past a lot of information from that website right into PastPerfect (and find it strangely satisfying)
- updated a loan file in PastPerfect, as it was recently extended for another year
- started creating exhibit labels for the “Art McKee and the Treasure Hunters” gallery; this particular gallery suffers from a major lack of information and continuity, so Erin thought it would be a great idea for me do some research (on both history and the collections) and come up with some labels that tell the story that is missing; last week’s blog entry that I wrote on Art McKee’s dagger handle was the precursor to this, so I have enough background knowledge to get started; I’m already finding it difficult to be both succinct and informative (not to mention interesting), especially as I write them by myself; I’m having flashbacks to Dr. W’s exhibit seminar, but am very glad I took it before attempting something like this (real exhibit labels in a real museum!); Erin has some of the important literature available for me, much of which I read in Dr. W’s seminar
After-work activities:
- I have no television here, so I had the pleasure of watching the Gator baseball team lose the national championship game on my tiny computer screen tonight; oh well, there’s always next year!
Wednesday, June 29 (10:00-5:30)
- I spent the entire day working on exhibit labels for the “Art McKee and the Treasure Hunters” gallery; so far, I have 4 different labels, each with 2 brief paragraphs; one is basic background on McKee (who he was, why he is important and how he got into diving); another is his contributions to the diving world (his inventions, innovations and “firsts” in diving); another is about the role the Florida Keys played in defining his life and “career” (discussing the important historical shipwrecks he found in the Keys and linking certain objects in the gallery to them and McKee; ties in local interests); and the final one is about his “larger than life” persona and status as one of the world’s first “celebrity divers” (appearances in Time, National Geographic and on television; also about being known for his museum of sunken treasure, the first of its kind); all of these labels are going to be placed near relevant objects or pictures, but it will be difficult for the visitor to determine which “direction” to go upon entering the gallery and which labels to read first; we will need to work on this further to make it successful
After-work activities:
- I had some sort of flatbread pizza with duck on it for dinner at Taster’s (spared no expense), but it couldn’t compare to dessert, which was a pineapple bourbon cobbler topped with cinnamon ice cream —- amazing; oh, and I had MORE coffee (this time from a french press, thank you snarky Facebook friends); wine by the water; what a fun night! I need to sleep more though (and maybe drink less coffee)…
Thursday, June 30 (10:00-5:30)
- organized a collection of Jacques Cousteau books
- created my third blog entry for the museum, this time on the HOBO data loggers; I wanted to make it fun and interesting (it’s pretty simple and boring in reality, at least to most people) and really get across the importance of monitoring a collection’s environment; some of the people at this museum don’t seem to think it’s all that important (or at least I get that impression), so maybe this will open some eyes; I used some information from the paper I wrote in Fall 2010 for Dixie’s Museum Registration seminar
- worked on editing the exhibit labels from yesterday
- cleared up some discrepancies in paperwork for a few objects on exhibit
After-work activities:
- watched the Ed Harris movie Pollock for the first time; great movie, better acting!; what a tortured soul; it made me wish I brought my painting supplies to the Keys!
Friday, July 1 (10:00-5:30)
- was on my own today, as Erin has most Friday’s off
- went through all the Deeds of Gift from 2010 and printed out the associated accession and catalog records for them; the DOG’s were then filed away in the donor files, while the other records will be put in the accession files
- created labels for folders that will eventually contain information about important figures in the diving world (and the museum); they will be “research files”
- something really awesome that I did today was created a “donations inquiry form” from scratch!; the idea is to link a PDF from the website for those people interested in donating an item to the museum’s collection or library; this helps avoid unwanted donations and formalize the entire process, something the museum has been struggling with in the past; we used a form handed out at the June 2010 FAM Collections Care Workshop as a template; I’ll have to see what Erin thinks of it next week, but I’m pretty proud of it; hopefully it’ll be “live” on the website soon so I can post a link!
- on an interesting side-note, Erin was actually at the very same workshop as me in June 2010 at Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki!; there is a picture of us standing pretty much right next to each other in the FAM newsletter; neither of us remembers each other that well; I am obviously a great networker; anyways, I guess the museum world is a small one!
- finally, I created a preliminary display label/poster for the “how long can you hold your breath?” interactive; currently, there is no sign at this station, only a “start” and “stop” button to time how long you can hold your breath; I felt like the museum really ought to have something visitors could compare their breath-holding times to and give themselves some way of evaluating their times; my idea was to have a poster with the average breath holding times of marine creatures/divers and compare them to humans (seals, dolphins, sperm whale, etc.); I also want to have to record times of humans (currently at almost 20 minutes!) somewhere; my initial poster is pretty simple and just has pictures of animals next to their times, with an underwater background and the title “Nature’s Breath Holders”; the animals descend in depth on the poster according to how long they can hold their breath, with humans up near the top of the water column in the background; I really appreciated them letting me attempt this, as it was completely my idea and it had been bugging me since Day 1; I hope they like it enough to put it up!
