Summer Interns Make a Big Impact

The following is a message from our NCHM Summer 2023 Interns:

While the summer may be a slower season for events, new collections, and new exhibits at the Neill-Cochran House Museum, the summer certainly did not lack any amount of learning or experience for our time as NCHM summer interns. In addition to learning about the administrative intricacies of the historic house museum, we tackled many projects such as updating the museum’s online database, publishing sections of the NCHM’s collection online for public viewing, and helping out at various events hosted on site. Most importantly, we both gained a better understanding of how a smaller museum and historic site like this one is run and the work that goes into making its stories so impactful and wonderful.

It’s amazing what you can learn when you have the ability to just sit in a place as unique and with as much history as the Neill-Cochran House Museum. Each of these rooms truly puts you into the time period, allowing you to see what life may have looked like 100 or so years ago and to experience quite a different reality, good and bad. The spaces in the NCHM each offer an opportunity to sit and reconcile with the past, to ask questions and learn from them, and to feel connected to the people who came before. We can both confirm, after working here for around three months, that the impact and awe of the stories in the collection simply doesn't get old. Our growing familiarity and knowledge this summer has strengthened our connections with each space and object and further enhanced our overall experience in the museum. 

A large part of our internship this summer was updating the NCHM’s online object database. We’ve recently changed cataloging software and so this task was necessary to ensure our collection had all the information and images we wanted it to include. We spent lots of time taking pictures with our new lightbox, updating dates, checking ownership, and adding contextual information for pieces in the collection. We also reorganized the online entries using new folders and tags so staff and future interns can navigate the database with more ease. This update has not only been helpful to museum staff but also allowed us to begin publishing information from our online object database through our CatalogIt Hub, now linked publicly on our website.

The Hub displays portions of the NCHM’s collection online and is currently accessible through the “Virtual Collection” tab on our website. We’ve slowly been publishing new folders to the Hub so that visitors can view pieces of our collection online. These online folders include a mixture of individual objects on display and objects in storage, allowing in person and online visitors to view our collection with even more depth. By the end of summer, we hope to have folders for past exhibitions, some of the rooms in the house, and our Artifact Friday posts. 

Working with this cataloging software has not only been an invaluable experience for our role as interns, but also really allowed us to view the nooks and crannies of the NCHM collection. Unfortunately, not every piece in the collection can be on display or noticed during one’s first walkthrough. Our work updating and publishing sections of the catalog intends to both inform visitors about the notable objects on display and spark a further interest and appreciation for objects that were overlooked or unable to be seen. Our interests in curation and museum studies rely heavily on the importance of story-telling, so the ability to work with pieces that might not get as much attention and still be able to share why they matter has been so much fun. 

While we learned immense amounts about the collection itself, we also learned about the nitty gritty administrative aspects of running a museum and all of the parts that one wouldn’t necessarily think about. For example, event planning, making budgets, and writing contracts are just some of the things that we’ve worked on that have shown us another side of the museum world.

Overall, this summer has been an incredible experience and learning opportunity and we are glad to have spent it with the amazing staff at the house. The Neill-Cochran House Museum is truly a special place and we both can’t wait to come back and visit. 

Ella Thomas and Amanda Roessler
NCHM Summer Interns, 2023