This past week at the Pack Library, I have been digitizing the Michael Harney collection that I had been organizing before. The process is far simpler than I had originally imagined. On the database I write down a bit of the information on each folder, giving each folder a page as well. First is that time period that the folder covers, then some different search terms, any associated groups or organizations, and most importantly the description. The description for each folder should be written in a straightforward manner, while also thoroughly describing the contents of said folder, much the way a historian’s writings should be clear while also being heavily detailed. The scanning process is just as simple, yet far more rewarding. The scanners at Pack are really rather nice, and easy to use. Simply place your page you are scanning onto the scanner, preview the page and make certain you are scanning it in its entirety, name and number your page, and scan! Then turn it into a pdf file. If there are multiple pages to a document, you must combine them into a single pdf, which is where the numbering is most useful, as it assures that the pages are in order. Once the document is a pdf it must be converted to a pdf that can be recognized as having text, and then made smaller so it can more easily go onto the database. I had always wondered how pdfs were created, and now I know it is simply a matter of having the proper software. Each folder needs about three documents online, simply as a way to give someone looking at the folder online a good idea about what they can find in it.

This past week at the Pack Library, I have been digitizing the Michael Harney collection that I had been organizing before. The process is far simpler than I had originally imagined. On the database I write down a bit of the information on each folder, giving each folder a page as well. First is that time period that the folder covers, then some different search terms, any associated groups or organizations, and most importantly the description. The description for each folder should be written in a straightforward manner, while also thoroughly describing the contents of said folder, much the way a historian’s writings should be clear while also being heavily detailed. The scanning process is just as simple, yet far more rewarding. The scanners at Pack are really rather nice, and easy to use. Simply place your page you are scanning onto the scanner, preview the page and make certain you are scanning it in its entirety, name and number your page, and scan! Then turn it into a pdf file. If there are multiple pages to a document, you must combine them into a single pdf, which is where the numbering is most useful, as it assures that the pages are in order. Once the document is a pdf it must be converted to a pdf that can be recognized as having text, and then made smaller so it can more easily go onto the database. I had always wondered how pdfs were created, and now I know it is simply a matter of having the proper software. Each folder needs about three documents online, simply as a way to give someone looking at the folder online a good idea about what they can find in it.

This past week I have gotten the true archivist’s experience, getting to sort through a massive pile of unorganized documents, many of which are only vaguely related to the collection’s theme. The collection that Michael Harney gave to the Pack Library that I have been sorting through is centered around  The Needle Exchange Program of Asheville (a program that allows those with a need for clean needles to exchange their old used needles for clean ones in an attempt to stem the spread of AIDS/HIV) and Michael Harney’s work with the Western North Carolina AIDS Project; however, I have found that some of the material is either only loosely related to these topics or completely unrelated to either. Allow me to share some examples. A plethora of printed off online articles about AIDS/HIV from a variety of online news sources, many of which have nothing to do with Western North Carolina. A project report from the North Carolina Division of Transportation highlighting some changes they plan to make to the roads in Asheville.  And my personal favorite, an advanced math book from 1985 written in Spanish, accompanied by some of Michael Harney’s assignments, all written in Spanish as well. All in all it has actually been fun to go through this material, excluding the online articles, and sort it out into different folders. This coming week I will be learning to scan properly and use the online database to enter stage two of this collection organization.

This semester I will be interning at the Pack Library in downtown Asheville. So far I have met with my internship mentor Zoe, and worked five hours. So far there are a variety of differences from the Vance Birthplace. First, the Pack Library has a less structured scheduling system, as while it is open to the public, it is not hyper-focused at helping visitors as the Vance Birthplace is. So I can come in whenever is good for me and get to work. The work is also, as one might imagine, quite different. Rather than deal with visitors, I will be working with an archive. My first project will have me attacking a rather recent collection left by the Western North Carolina Aids Project writer, Michael Harney, also known as the Rubberman. Harney wrote a wide variety of articles in newspapers, which I have just finished organizing be publication and date. Now I will be going through the mass of other documentation that he left, attempting to organize it into different folders by theme, and then organize those be date.

Over the course of my internship at the Vance Birthplace, I have done database entry, artifact handling, retail work, cleaning, inventory, education programs, and worked with the public, and can safely say that it was enjoyable. One of the most important lessons that I learned is that in working at an understaffed and underfunded state historic site, one can expect to do a variety of jobs, and that general maintenance of the site is largely up to anyone working there, especially if the site is as small as the Birthplace. I also learned of the strangely extensive libraries that these sites have, and how extremely niche the content can be. One less pleasant thing that I learned is that many historians in the field of museum studies can disagree on what aspects of the past are important, and the Vance Birthplace is a good example of these differences of opinion clashing. The site itself was begun as a variable shrine to Zebulon Vance, who many Western North Carolinians consider a hero. This positive opinion of Vance is based primarily on his popularity in the Civil War and his help in bringing the Railroad into Asheville and many other opportunities to white Western North Carolinians. While the morality of Vance’s character is questionable, it is not for historians to question, as we are not moralists, but it is our place to question the importance of the historic  sites that we help maintain and create. Many of those who helped in the creation of the Vance Birthplace would say it is important simply because of Vance, and not because it can be used as a way to,educate the public on how a wealthy pioneer family would have lived in the early 18th century.

So far my internship at the Vance Birthplace has been going wonderfully. I have completed around 86 hours at the Birthplace, and have to say that I have enjoyed myself greatly. Lately I have been working with a website called Library Thing and continuing work on my Roving Program. Library Thing is a useful site that allows libraries to inventory  their books. It takes data on books from a variety of websites and libraries like Amazon.com and the Library of Congress, so one only needs to find the book and add their own search tags. If the book’s information cannot be found on any of those sites then it needs tt be input manually, which is not so difficult. Once we are finished putting these books online, researchers will be able to look for books on particular subjects in our small library. In doing this I learned just how many rare, unique, and even strange books a small historic site could have, and how they may be an underutilized resource for us students. My Roving Program is still going to focus upon bullet molds, but my salt gourd half of the program will also also involve the gourd ladle, depending on the preference of the individual using the program.

For any historian, from a budding undergraduate student, to a doctorate holder who has studied history most of their life, they must tackle the difficult question of whether or not a source is valid or useful. Few sources must have this question asked of them more than oral histories, for a plethora of reasons. For one, an oral history is more impromptu than most written documents, and from this a variety of problems arise. Because of the impromptu nature of an oral interview, there is greater chance that the speaker will not remember a particular event or moment in their life correctly, and thus give inaccurate information. This does not come from a desire to hide the truth, but rather it is a matter of simple human error. Another problem is that the interviewer and the person being interviewed will at times have different intentions for the interview, and will thus try to derail the overall conversation. This can make the interview a confused mess, and difficult to use. One must allow the other to guide the interview, thus allowing it to flow properly, and unless the interview is meant to be about a very particular subject, it should be the one being intinterviewed who leads the interview, as their words are the sources historians will use, and thus more important. Even if the information given is inaccurate, or jumbled, it is a useful source for the beliefs of individual people, and can thus be used as a primary source for studying historic memory or social memory. The criticisms that less professional oral history projects such as Storycorps receive are undeserved, as a proper oral history should aspire to be honest and sincere, focused more upon what individuals themselves and what they are drwn to, rather than overly specific events, which will likely be inaccurate to begin with.

So far my internship has been going very well, and three things of note have happened. First, I have been okayed to give tours to regular visitors after Kimberly had me give her a mock tour and felt that I remembered enough to be trusted with everyday visitors. Unfortunately, I have not yet had the chance to give a tour to a regular visitor as none have wanted one while I was on duty. My second bit of news is that I will be doing what Kimberly calls a roving exhibit. Essentially I will look at two artifacts in detail and prepare a few paragraphs on each about how they would have been used in the early 1800s, and how this relates to the current day. I will be telling this information to regular visitors and try to relate it to them and their modern world. They will also be allowed to handle the artifact, or reproduction of an artifact, which further connects them to it, and through the artifact, I hope a connection with their own past and heritage is found. The overall purpose of this project will be to allow people to interact with an artifact in a way that they usually never would be allowed to. The last shard of news is that last Friday we had a school group made up of second graders, and I was deeply surprised with how well they behaved, and how much I enjoyed helping them in the candle activity they did. I further felt that they, and other school groups, are lucky as they get to not just enjoy a fun field trip, but they also get to understand further the hard work and time which went into creating some of the simplest items by preforming the candle making activity.

The ruling social class within a society usually has an interest in quieting the voices of those whom are different from itself. In the United States that has historically meant native American tribes, African-Americans, and those who are not heterosexual having the abuses and very lives covered up by ethnically European heterosexual people. In public history, there has been and can be pushback from the controlling class against stories of people that it would rather have silenced, yet as historians we must do our utmost to offer a full encompassing and unbiased story of the past to the pubic. At the Vance Birthplace, there have been strides to bring  the full story to the public, which includes the slaves owned by the Vance family, and the many African-Americans that Gov. Vance targeted with vagrancy laws to imprison and force into labor. Just a few years back, the Vance Birthplace had little to nothing to say about the slaves who lived there and worked for the Vances, now that has changed, and we have the names of nearly every slave owned by the Vance family, and some detailed information on a few. The tour itself is being reworked to be longer and more detailed, and it shall include the slave cabin and information on a few of the slaves who would have lived there. The exhibit on Gov. Vance’s life has already been changed to include the historic fact that he used vagrancy laws to incarcerate African-American men and force them into one of the most dangerous jobs possible, working upon the railroad. A great many African-American men died working to build this railroad, and many have been content to ignore their story for the sake of Gov. Vance’s pride, and the pride of Asheville.

I have now interned at the Vance Birthplace for 29 hours for 3 weeks, and I can safely say that it is an enjoyable experience. The first few days I read threw the tour outline and Vance family information, and familiarized myself with the grounds, which includes the pioneer’s mansion, a tool shed, loom house, smoke house, corn crib, slave cabin, and spring house. I have also been greeting visitors, which has steadily become far less awkward. In the beginning I could barely manage to tell them the services that we offer, as speaking to and in front of humans is very, very, very frightening. Yet now I can smile with an easy manner and rattle off the services while barely getting tongue tied. Doing this I am becoming more and more aware of how important bringing in visitors is for the site, as their very livelihood relies upon visitation. This week I was also able to do inventory on the different books that were at the Birthplace, and decide whether or not each one belonged. Most had good reason to be there, while a few should never have entered the building. It was quite enjoyable, and I learned that most museums and historic sites have an inventory going on at all time, as the collections change with time and new pieces and information come about. I also got the distinct pleasure of handling artifacts in the main building, some chairs which belonged in the kitchen but were being moved and the small chest used for papers and the like owned by the Vance family, and seeing the attic, which was rather gross. The most important thing that I learned, is that artifacts must be held like babies with paper skin and peppermint bones, that is to say very carefully.