Talley Your Adventure – The Blog

Hello, bloggers! Welcome back to another addition of Day in the Life. For those of you that haven’t seen the first blog posting I started, it was on Stephanie Sims. Stephanie works for the Clinton Foundation as an Archivists for William J. Clinton (in the flesh!). This week, we will focus on Kit, who is a museum technician here with NARA at the WJC Library. For the rest of this semester, I will be interviewing every member here of the Clinton Staff that I have been working with since I started so that future GA’s are able to see what it is like working with this staff, and get a better understanding of  what it means to work for the federal government.

I met Kit the first day of my GA here over a year ago, and he gave me a fantastic tour of the building and introduced me to as many people as we could find. We have not only worked together, but attended the AMA conference (along with Jennifer, Joe and Joseph, who I will talk to later and post about) and is just generally a good guy who has a lot of different experience that he shared with me. For starters, Kit was in the Air Force for 24 years before he retired. In that time, he worked as an aircraft mechanic, a historian and finally a meteorologists. For the sake of this blog, we will stick with his experience as a historian.

Two of his most memorable experiences was in South Korea and San Antonio. Two completely different places! But, they did help shape his career to be where he is currently. In South Korea, Kit worked at the Air Force Heritage Center, and specifically the “Hall of Heroes”, or recipients of the Medal of Honor. Some great experience he learned seems rather mundane, such as lighting and case care, but these are all valuable tools to take with someone who is looking to move into the museum world. In addition, it is interesting to talk to someone about a museum that is so far away. He was only there for a bit before he moved, but this was the beginning of his real ‘experience’ in the museum field.

His second experience was when he moved back state-side, specifically San Antonio. There, he worked at Hangar 9. This is a pretty neat place. It is actually closed to the public today, and is kept as a historical landmark through the National Park Service. Back when Kit was involved with it, it was still a functioning place where people could rent out the hangar for public speaking, or come by for a tour (provide by the man himself!). Hangar 9 is the oldest hangar in the Air Force and the only one made of wood. This made museum work even more interesting, since there are rules that govern the building the artifacts are housed in. For instance, there was no air conditioning in the majority of the building because it was being preserved, and the doors to open the hangar for the public could not have motors on them for authenticity. However, the artifacts they did have are absolutely amazing. The history starts with the early Air Force medical research and ends with the Apollo moon landings! They had an astronaut suit! Though it didn’t go into space, it was made for a NASA astronaut. Cool!

For those of you looking to start as a museum technician, be prepared to be a ‘jack of all trades’. Kit told me that most of his day is not planned, since he could start off inventorying and end with helping with incoming or outgoing loans. Exhibit set up and conservation play important parts in his life as a museum tech, but one thing he does not get to do that often but is his favorite is giving tours to groups throughout the museum. The Clinton Library has volunteers that give tours, but sometimes there are special groups that come through. In that case, they can ask for a museum staff member to come up front and give a tour, or even bring them back into our work space!

Kit has been a great member of the team and I personally have learned a lot from him. Thanks for the interview, Kit, and hopefully if you bloggers out there are looking to get into working here at the Clinton Library you come by and say hi to him! Before you go, to the left is a picture of his favorite Clinton Library item. Creepy! Until next time!

Welcome back, bloggers! Hopefully your autumn is going as great as mine! We are full steam ahead here at the Clinton Library. Interestingly, the other day we got a really neat set of objects transferred from the Archives to us here in museum world. Most of it had to do with AmeriCorp, but one poster in particular caught my attention while Joseph and I were cataloging…this hilarious poster to the left! What will campaign people think of next!

The other really neat thing about this poster is now I can actually put into practice something I learned from a colleague in order to smooth and flatten out this poster. If you look close enough, you can see that this poster was actually rolled and then either something heavy was laid on it or it was put between objects and then left without regard to humidity or if it was exposed to the elements.

In either case, we have a badly folded object that has been held in one terrible position for so long that it has almost hardened into the shape, and the creases are very prevalent. In order to attempt to rectify this, I will be taking some information from both Nikki Senn, a colleague who works as an Assistant Registrar at the Historic Arkansas Museum, and a Conserve O Gram from the National Park Service.

First thing is to check for water solubility. I did this with a q-tip dipped in distilled water and then applied to the edges of the paper. It checked out. Next, the Curator here at the Clinton Library, Chris, brought us a large Tupperware box that we can use to create the chamber. We decided to go with two smaller boxes, or trays that we filled with water. Over these trays, we put a sheet of coroplast, basically plastic ‘cardboard’, to allow a separation between the object and the water. Then, we put the object on top of the coroplast and sealed the top of the box itself. We will be monitoring the object to make sure that it does not ruin the document. (You may note that it is on its side. This is not ideal, but through a group decision was allowed. If you are doing this yourself, leave flat!)

The goal is to allow the box itself to humidify the paper to the point that it relaxes and releases the tough hold it has on its current form. When we remove the object from the box, we will then place it on blotting paper (top and bottom) and place something heave on the paper to allow the object to completely flatten out. I have never done this before, so this is the perfect object to try this out on! It’s a bit more stronger than your average piece of paper, I think its weight is more towards the heavy card stock, but either way we think it should work. It should be noted that this is not a fool-proof plan. You do need to monitor you documents to make sure that you do not permanently distort your papers by allowing them to become too moist or to not allow them to dry properly. If you are using photographs, please research a bit more. This is a very delicate process and it can easily go south. We are using a document that, while it is very important to us, is also not as high on the list of ‘priceless’ objects. Check your chamber about every hour, and do not leave overnight!

In addition to this awesome new process that Joseph and I are learning, we also found a really cool object that we wanted to highlight. This is a SCUD missile! Sent to President Clinton from Romania, you gotta think to yourself…why would they send a beautifully wrapped and disarmed weapon to President Clinton for safe storage and historic reflection? Well, it’s not for us to decide, its for us to document and preserve. So, enjoy!

Until next time!

Hey Bloggers! Welcome back to another exciting addition of MUSEUM WORK! Here with me this week, is my special guest, Stephanie. She is pictured with me to the left. She is an archivist/curator for William J. Clinton himself, and is responsible for making sure that each object or document that is owned and claimed by former President Clinton is properly cataloged, stored, maintained and available for Clinton at any moment. Since this is my last semester here at UALR and with the Clinton Library, I will be taking the time in these last few months to highlight some of the employees I work with on a daily basis, from some of the Foundation employees to museum technicians. For our first one, we will be highlighting one of the Clinton Foundation employees and a personal friend, Stephanie!

Stephanie is also a student with Joseph and I at UALR in the Public History Masters program. Before she was employed with the Clinton Foundation, she was a Program Specialist at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff’s University Museum and Cultural Center, which is located on their campus. At UAPB, she was responsible for coordinating the education programs, exhibit design and helped manage the collection. You probably remember me talking about working with her before in this blog, and that is because she was the graduate assistant with me at the Clinton Library before transferring over to her full time job at the Foundation.

At the Foundation, she is one of the official archivists, but since she has so much experience working with objects, she is also responsible for those as well. Many of the objects are being held in storage here at the Clinton Library, and part of her job is to identify all of these objects and make sure that there is a system of accountability in place for their continued maintenance and survival past her employment. In addition, she routinely will receive other packages or objects that have been stored in the building where the Foundation resides. Lots of inventory, and lots of cool objects!

Stephanie and I have worked together for over a year now, and I am very glad that her role with the Foundation allows her to stick around here in the same office area as the one I am located. We help each other catalog, take pictures of objects and rehouse them, and other museum related tasks. While she is focused on her own missions, some of our jobs can overlap and it’s great to work as a team.

Lots more exciting things in the future, such as creating a humidifying chamber to flatten and smooth out a really neat poster! In addition, we have more employees we will highlight to help define museum and archive roles and showcase examples of myself working with these individuals in order to learn new skills and experience. Until next time!