Museum of Natural History, University of Oxford

As well as guiding my career ambitions through practical first-hand experience and networking,

I also gained a lot more confidence by working on this internship in a remote location where I

had little contacts and learnt to be more independent and self-sufficient.

Tadhg Cian Goodison, Lincoln College, BA History and Politics, Third Year

Undergraduate (of a four-year course), in-person working

Work Projects

I worked as an archival assistant in the Natural History

Museum in Oxford, during which I was cataloguing the

Phillips Archive. This is an extensive archive, and I was

concentrated on his correspondence, which I took from

being in chronological order into alphabetical order

before properly storing in acid free containers, building a

finding aid for archival use and logging the record on the

Emu system which used the ISAG system which a standardised process for archives globally.

During the course of my internship, I fully organised the letters into alphabetical order which

also required stripping the entire archive- 126 boxes of any letters which had been filled

elsewhere, approximate 4,000 separate letters in total. I also catalogued A-F, which was roughly

2,000 letters, and entered about 300 letters onto the EMu system. I also contributed to

conversations on the redisplay occurring at the museum, worked in the botanic gardens and

held a 167 million year old dinosaur bone, and piece of the moon, mars, and a rock that form

before the Earth did.

Daily Life

A day in the life of an intern, begins with getting up at 6:00 thanks to the construction outside

my window, getting ready then working on university work until 8:40 I then walked the 15

minutes to the museum passed the university church, the rad cam, Hertford college, broad

street, Wadham college and finally the currently constructing Ruben College. I then used my

external keys to access the staff entrance and enter the office from which I got my internal keys

which could not leave the Museum. Then I dropped my lunch in the staff fridge before heading

upstairs into the Hope Library and Archive.

Here I either worked on the first

floor with the librarian and other

archivist if I was cataloguing or

entering records onto Emu, earlier in

the internship I worked mostly on the second floor on organising the archive as there was more

space and the area was less public so could be left in semi-organised states over weekends. The

work itself was reading the letters to identify the author of the letter, and then filling those

letters written by the same person together.

Lasting Impressions

It was an amazing experience. The people were incredibly friendly and nice, and I felt supported

from the moment I walked through the door. I learned a lot about Victorian science and the

developments of the GLAM system in oxford as well as the life and role of Librarians and

Archivists. This internship has helped inspire me to pursue further exploration of a career in

Libraries or archiving.

Practical Advice

Enthusiasm is important. Don't be afraid to speak to new people and develop connections,

everyone at the Museum has a cool job and trust me you want to hear all about it.

Chen Chen, St. Hugh’s College, BFA Fine Art, Second Year Undergraduate, in-

person working

Work Projects

The Oxford University Natural History Museum is in possession of a large quantity of yet to be

catalogued material, including a disparate collection of glass magic lantern slides, dating from

the 1870s-1950s, when the use of lantern slides became largely obsolete. As an intern my main

work involved cataloguing and digitising this collection with another intern, Mary, continuing

the work of last year’s two interns who began the vital work. The collection is important as,

while previously seen as low-value items, the lantern slides are a fascinating repository of

scientific and historic information about work carried out in and around the museum at the

time they were produced.

Lantern slides were created from photographs, and those in the museum’s collection encompass a wide range of disciplines, from those typically associated with the museum;

geology, entomology, zoology, palaeontology; to more unexpected areas like physics and

chemistry. They were shown either during lectures (much of the university teaching happened,

and continues to happen, at the museum) or in a more entertainment-based context, for

example at the early 20th century Ashmolean Natural History Society Christmas lectures for

children. Lantern slides can be thought of essentially as early PowerPoint slides.

For this reason, they are particularly important objects to

understand and include in the archive, as they provide

not only an insight into aesthetics, thought and

knowledge at the time they were created, but also what

of this the creator deemed was important enough to

share with a large group of people, either in an academic

or recreational context (or both!). It is important that the

museum and the general public are able to access this sort of information, so it was really

rewarding to both have the opportunity to work on this internship. By the end of the six-week

internship, we managed to digitise over 3000 lantern slides and completed two lunch break

lantern slide shows in the museum's lecture theatre. The museum's supervisor for this project,

Danielle, provided invaluable support in providing many archival information about the slides

we discovered and organising many extra activities within the museum throughout the

internship.

Daily Life

I usually get to the museum in the morning by walking from college accommodation. On my

first day of work, I met three other summer interns who are starting their six-week internship

on the same day, including my project partner Mary. We received a brief tour around the

museum and a health and safety introduction in the afternoon from Laura, who is the

museum's Events Manager. Mary and I followed a relatively consistent workflow throughout

the internship. Earlier in the internship, we focused on cataloguing the slides, removing them

from their original storage, labelling them with a unique code for retrieval and entering

metadata into a spreadsheet.

Once the camera and equipment for digitisation

were set up, we shifted focus towards mass-

digitisation, as the rest of the cataloguing work

could be completed remotely. We worked together

on this, with one person labelling the slides, placing them onto the lightbox and naming/placing in folders/quality-checking the slides when they were

uploaded onto the computer. The other person was responsible for checking that the camera

settings were appropriate for the slides being photographed, setting the focus, taking the

images, and transferring the slides into the drawers for storage, with dividers and labels.

Throughout the workday, we have a morning and afternoon tea break and a lunch break when

we would often join the library museum staff members and our supervisor in the common

room or sit outside on the lawns. Outside of work I worked on some graphic designs for a

university society and enjoyed the time off.

Lasting Impressions

The internship has been a really amazing experience overall. What I find most valuable about

this internship experience is the self-led exploration of uncatalogued museum materials and

being able to uncover hidden narratives for images shown on the glass slides when cataloguing

and digitising them in sequence, combined with the on-site experience of working in the paper

conservation attic of a historical museum that gives us a truly immersive experience.

As a student coming from the creative arts, I enjoyed exploring the various themes these glass

slides had shown, and we’ve definitely both learnt more about Geology in the last 6 weeks than

ever before! Due to the presentational purpose of magic lantern slides, these objects are

invaluable visual representations of the discourse in academic interests of natural history dating

from the 1870s to the 1960s as they capture 'moments in time'. The experience has greatly

encouraged my career ambition in museum collections and interest in digitisation projects.

Lucy Ella Jackson, University College, MEarthSci Earth Sciences, Second Year

Undergraduate, in-person working

Work Projects

I catalogued a collection of fossils. Some of the fossils

were suffering from pyrite decay which I selected and

conserved in the museum’s conservation lab. I also had a few smaller tasks like answering object enquiries from

the general public. At the start of the project I received

training on how to use the museum’s computer system and how to catalogue the fossils. After that the work was mostly independent but I always had

a supervisor I could contact if I needed help or advice on how to proceed.