Item

Alex Hinely Internship Portfolio

Media

Title (Dublin Core)

Alex Hinely Internship Portfolio

Description (Dublin Core)

As a second-year graduate student in the History MA program at Arizona State University, I found myself enrolling in the HST 580: Professional Experience course after viewing an online announcement outlining the unique experience of a remote internship. With prior experience as a digital archivist with the National Archives and Records Administration, the Smithsonian Institute, and the California Digital Newspaper Collection, in addition to years spent as an undergraduate research assistant at the UCLA Center for Korean Studies digitizing reels of microfilm, I initially believed this internship to be hours of busywork without much substance. I was quickly proven wrong, however. Unlike the previous archives mentioned, A Journal of the Plague Year is a living and breathing archive, recording stories as they occur. This constant fluctuation resulting from live submissions created a dynamic, and sometimes turbulent, workspace that required interns to possess flexibility, problem-solving, and innovation skills.

Far from my initial understanding of the internship, the archive provided curatorial interns with a wide-ranging set of skills applicable in any professional environment. Using Omeka-S, Otter.ai, and Slack, interns learned to enhance accessibility to historical documents by curating and transcribing crowdsourced items into a searchable resource. Curatorial interns carefully handled thousands of photographs, articles, and recordings, while assisting with branding, legal compliance, and writing for diverse platforms. Through archival collaborations with international universities and institutions, interns were able to advance their communication skills to convey necessary, time-sensitive, and fluctuating information concerning the live curation of items.

This interactive and innovative internship challenged my understanding of public history and pushed me to appreciate the archival process in a new light. As calls for submissions urged individuals to share their everyday experiences with the COVID-19 pandemic, I recognized the importance of documenting daily happenings and confronting historical silences. As a result, A Journal of the Plague Year reignited my determination to support rural K-12 students and ensure that their stories are documented alongside their urban and suburban counterparts. While I have no immediate plans to become a public historian, I have learned an innumerable amount of skills that will surely advance my career in the educational sector.

Date (Dublin Core)

August 23, 2020

Creator (Dublin Core)

Alex Hinely

Contributor (Dublin Core)

Alex Hinely

Event Identifier (Dublin Core)

HST580

Partner (Dublin Core)

Arizona State University

Type (Dublin Core)

Portfolio

Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)

English Biography
English Education--K12
English Education--Universities
English Rural

Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)

internship
archive
curation
history
school
student

Collection (Dublin Core)

K-12
Rural Voices

Linked Data (Dublin Core)

Two children doing homework with an older woman. When Grandma Becomes the Teacher
Image of a woman working from home.Educator Zoom Meetings
Distance Learning Packets Organized for Distribution
The Masked Graduate
Summer School Classroom
Morgan Keena Oral History, 2020/07/11
Stephanie Kelley Oral History, 2020/07/24
Claire Cunliffe Oral History, 2020/07/24
HST 580 Professional Experience/Archives course

Date Submitted (Dublin Core)

08/22/2020

Date Modified (Dublin Core)

08/23/2020
08/02/2022
09/24/2024

Item sets

Covid 19
Arizona State University

Linked resources

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Title Alternate label Class
Campus Closure and Event Postponement Announcements Link Image

This item was submitted on August 22, 2020 by Alex Hinely using the form “Share Your Story” on the site “A Journal of the Plague Year”: https://www.covid-19archive.org/s/archive

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