This was the 15th week of my internship and I am writing what is to be my last official, graded blog. The week consisted of more of the same from last week interspersed with an amazing lecture and a fun group outing.
Like the last few weeks, almost all of my work this was on Linked Open Data. I have developed a better pace on finding information and authority files and have been able to adhere to the 30-minute rule pretty consistently (for efficiency’s sake, we are supposed to spend a maximum of 30 minutes per day on each entry on the Persons and Places directory). Some authority files, as well as information about specific people are quite hard to find, but by trying alternate spellings and strategies I could usually find everything I was looking for. An effective strategy I learned to get information on Germans was to replace the .com in my search with .de. This would give me direct access to the German speaking internet where information on Pietists was infinitely more accessible (This method was taught to the AFSt team by Dr. Beiler).
While both transcription workshops were cancelled this week, the main team meeting occurred as usual. We had a guest lecture from Dr. Hardy, which was incredibly in depth and insightful. Dr. Hardy’s lecture focused on the political jurisdictions and boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire in order to better help us understand the locations and people we were working with. We learned the hierarchical structure of society, as well as how complex political jurisdictions functioned across the empire. The maps and regions were not nearly as cut and dry as modern maps, so it was fantastic to have an expert give us insight into why that was. Dr. Hardy’s lecture was relevant to everyone at PRINT, but specially so to my AFSt team, since Germany is the main sending and receiving location for the majority of our letters.
On Thursday of this week, I was fortunate enough to go on an outing with 6 other PRINT members to the Orange County Regional History Center. Thanks to the connections of those on the team, we were able to get a tour from the center’s Executive Director and its Curator of Collections. We got specific insights into all the exhibits of the museum and even got to view the Museum’s archive and collections. This was an incredibly educational and entertaining experience that may have opened a possible internship opportunity for me in the future.
My last major task for this week was working on my internship presentation for next week. I have partnered up with James Silveira, another first semester PRINT intern, to complete the presentation. This will be beneficial as we have both done similar work, but our work on different teams will provide unique insights. We will be able to draw comparisons between what we did while also pointing out the differences. I also scheduled my final evaluation with Dr. Beiler, where I will get constructive feedback and discuss my work on the project. I am quite excited to discuss my performance with Dr. Beiler, as well as to get her insight into my upcoming trip to Berlin!