History Colorado - Week 3

Hi,


I've been having so much fun at my internship, that I can't believe I'm more than halfway through it!
I hope you guys are enjoying your internship!


This week, I got to take a tour of the History Colorado collections, which was simply amazing. The library downstairs is closed stacks, but the librarian took me into the back room. The sheer volume of artifacts is astounding. They have full runs of several newspapers from around the state, more recent ones on paper and older papers have been catalogued on microfilm. They have an extensive collection of photographs (current estimates are around 2 million prints). They have oral histories and these genealogy surveys that were sent to random people in the state during the 40s. I also had the pleasure of meeting one of the people who manages the artifacts division. There are shelves and shelves of artifacts from ancient native culture to kid's toys, to farm equipment and candy molds (the very large stuff is not on site).  The museum's collections are astounding.


This week I also had my story time at the Corky Gonzalez Branch Library. When I got there, I was introduced to the librarian who does story time, and a YAP alumni, Marilyn Riviera. The librarian let me know that story time is typically full of children 2 years old and younger. So after the librarian did the hello song and started with her first book "My House", which had about a sentence a page, I switched gears. The book was way to long for them so I more or less narrated the pictures, and only lost a few of the babies' attention. There were about 15 kids and they all seemed to enjoy story time and the coloring pages and play time afterward. It was a great experience.

This week I've also continued my work on El Movimiento, La Gente and the JA Trunk. I've been learning so much about the Latino and Japanese communities in Colorado. I have also learned that exhibit design is a real engineering challenge, and that working around pillars is incredibly annoying. I also did a bit of data analysis for the Volunteer department, making sense of the volunteer survey results.

On a separate note, I take the bus to the museum, which means that I get to walk to the museum from the  bus stop. It always makes my morning to walk by the golden dome of the state capitol,the Colorado Supreme Court and across the Civic Center greens!

Hope you guys had a good week,

Ilse Maria Meiler