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No other state has anything like it.Ī team of four other interns and I were assigned 5-6 counties a piece and tasked with locating previously undocumented sculptures. Its purpose is both as a reference tool and a means to encourage communities to preserve their outdoor sculpture. OOS is an online database of outdoor sculptures in Ohio, which includes images, location information and maps, historical data, and more. I’m graduating at the end of this semester and still needed an internship since the one I had lined up last summer fell through because of COVID. When I heard about the project, I was really excited. He works closely with the MLIS program at Kent State to find interns. Bill Barrow, who coordinates the project, has a reputation for being a mentor to up-and-coming library professionals and he does a great job trying to provide students with valuable experiences. I’m just finishing up an internship with The Sculpture Center in Cleveland, working virtually on their Ohio Outdoor Sculpture (OOS) database and website (). What’s that like? What have you learned during your internship? You’re interning with Ohio Outdoor Sculpture. What I really love about digital archives is their potential to bring that mystery, treasure hunt, and adventure right into people’s homes and offer new ways that we can discover important parts of our lives and our cultural heritage. But they aren’t just shelves of books and boxes of papers anymore, increasingly they are digital, whether born that way or converted.
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It’s a mystery, treasure hunt, and adventure all rolled into one. Most people don’t get a chance to visit archives, and they might appear at first like just a bunch of old records and books, until that is, you go looking for something in one. I love history, and one of the most intriguing aspects of it is the way we continually uncover new facts and perspectives that allow us to see points in the past in a new way. My career up to this point has been in the publishing industry, mostly educational publishing, and for the past 13 years I have been a freelance writer/editor working in educational publishing.įor just about 14 years, I’ve wanted to be an archivist.
KENT STATE ISCHOOL PROFESSIONAL
I have a BFA in Art History from Ohio University and an MS in Professional Writing from Towson University. Tell us a little bit about your academic and/or professional background and areas of focus. Master’s in Library and Information Science, with a focus on Archival Studies and Digital Preservation. What degree are you pursuing at the KSU iSchool?
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