December 11, 2019 (Wednesday), 9:00-5:30pm:

Hours completed: 8

Total hours completed: 81.25

In the morning, I worked on the augmented reality component of the St. John’s Church exhibition. Since one of the AR components will be explanations of the saints pictured on a chalice, I tracked down some brief biographies of each of the saints pictured (that met my standards for mobile viewing) and also tracked down the images that would be used to link the biographies to. I ended up “borrowing” and clipping some of the images that Greg had taken of each pictured saint for the CDR, which made for high-quality, clear, and immediately recognizable points of reference. (2.5 hours)

Over lunch, I had a meeting with Fr. Carlson regarding Carlson Fable Collection. He explained to me how the project started, what its focus is, its funding sources, and how he sees it continuing to grow. We also talked about how I could best contribute to the project. Since my time with the department is drawing to a close, we decided that cataloging the artifacts would not be a good use of time, since I would probably only be able to do a fraction of the collection before having to leave. Thus, I pitched to him the oral history interview concept with the intention of me starting the process to pilot it, but the department continuing it, should it prove successful, after I depart. (2 hours)

In the afternoon, I met another undergrad student worker with the department to discuss a research project she had done on how to unfold or unroll brittle photographs. We discussed ways we could broaden the manual to include documents and paper-specific cares we would need to take. The meeting was regarding some documents in the SJC collection called “authentics,” which are certificates of authenticity issued by a bishop to confirm a relic of a Catholic saint or martyr. To be able to scan the documents for the CDR, we would have to unfold them, probably making an ad hoc humidification chamber. (1.5 hours)

Later, since I have now met my halfway point of hours, I met with Dave to discuss how the internship was going, whether or not we were meeting my internship objectives, and planning for the remainder of the internship if there were any areas that needed more attention. We determined that the objectives were being adequately addressed, but that involving me more in the unfolding process of the relic authentics would be a really good experience for my objective to experience collections care and safe handling. (1.5 hours)

Finally, I helped one of the undergrad student interns apply some of the AR labels she had created to works of art around the library (30 minutes).

The intern applying a label with a QR code that links to an augmented reality environment with more information about the artist.