Learning About Museum Operations at the Ponce de Leon Lighthouse and Museum

      Good evening everyone. This week, I got the opportunity to participate in efforts to digitize the VHS tape collection of the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse's library so that they could be easily accessible on the museum's internal server. On Monday I spent the majority of the day setting up a VCR player and a USB adapter that allows the VCR player to be connected to a computer, so that the VHS tapes can then be recorded through video capture soft such as OBS, which is the software we used at the museum. Unfortunately, technology can be finicky sometimes, so much of the first day on Monday was spent getting the VHS adapter to work properly, working out issues with not be able to record video and audio recording over itself. However, once we did get the VHS adapter working, we started to record our first of a number of VHS tapes from the museum library.     One Wednesday, I returned to the lighthouse and made sure that the VCR player was still working the same as we...

      Good morning everybody! This week, I got the chance to participate in some light archaeology and conservation at the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse and Museum, as we spent Monday and Wednesday collecting, cleaning, and organizing glass bottles that we found on the Pacetti Hotel property. On Monday, myself and Holly spent the morning collecting over 60 glass bottles, jugs, and jars of all shapes, sizes, and colors. For whatever reason, the small bits of wooded area that surround the Pacetti Hotel were filled with a number of unbroken bottles, jugs, and jars all dating from anywhere between the late 1800s up to the modern period, so Felipe had us scouring these areas in order to both, collect more bottles and help clean up the  property for visitors. The process consisted of carefully inspecting various sections of the woods and then collecting whatever bottles or glassware we could with either our hands or a special grabbing tool. Then we collected each item and stored ...

     Good evening everyone! For my internship this week, I got the opportunity to act as a museum conservator and got to work on the restoration of a number of artifacts recently acquired by the museum. On Monday, Holly and I got to work on a multi-step process for the restoration of a handful of metal artifacts in the museums collection. Due to the nature of metals, rust has a tendency to build up quite a lot on certain artifacts over long periods of time, so it is up to the conservator, or in this case the curator and curatorial staff, to prevent any further damage from happening to the artifacts. So, after putting on some gloves and some face masks, we got to work on stage one of the restoration process. The first thing we did on an item was to brush every inch of the rusted artifact with toothbrushes to remove flaking rust, dirt, and dust from the surface of the metal. Then, he took some soft-bristled paint brushes and applied a nice, even coat of a chemical called Kr...

      Good afternoon everyone! This week at the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse and Museum I continued gaining valuable experience working in a museum. This week, we focused on the process of deaccessioning items from the museum's collection. Sometimes, museums end up with more items in their collection than the need or can use, so they need to find new homes for these items, instead of doing something drastic like throwing things away. In this case, the lighthouse had a number of pieces of furniture dating from the 1880s all the way to about the 1950s.     The first step to deaccessioning an item from the museum's collection was to learn where the items had come from. In the case of these furniture pieces, they had all been graciously donated by residents of Ponce Inlet, so we looked back at the museum's accession records and reached out to all of the donors to learn if they  wanted any of their items returned to them before we moved on to other potential homes for...

      Good afternoon everyone! This week at the Ponce Inlet Lighthouse and Museum, I continued to work on the museum's collection management, working to make sure that the museum's large collection has been properly catalogued and organized. However, I also go to briefly work with the museum's curator, Felipe, as we worked on methods for cleaning the various outdoor signs around the lighthouse's property.     On Monday, my day was spent the same way my previous couple of weeks had been. I arrived early to the lighthouse that morning and immediately got to work on the large list of items in the museum's collection that still need to be accessioned. At this point, most of the largest and most important items have been properly accessioned and organized within PastPerfect, but this means that much of what  remains are smaller items and duplicate items, most of which will probably remain either in storage or will be moved into the Pacetti Hotel's "Visible Stora...

      Good evening everybody! This week, I will admit, was a rather slow and simple week of working as an intern with the Ponce de Leon Inlet Lighthouse. Because of Hurricane Milton, many of the plans the museum's curator, Felipe, put in place did not come to fruition. Originally, Felipe had planned to be gone this week for the Florida Association of Museums' annual conference. This is supposed to be a conference where different people in or interested in the world of museums can come together to share and discuss ideas and experiences about museum design, museum operations, collections management and a host of other related topics. During the conference this  year, Felipe was scheduled to be at the conference for multiple days to give presentations on the restoration of the Pacetti Hotel and the complications of deaccessioning items from a collection. During this time, Felipe had planned for Holly and myself to remain on our own within PastPerfect, taking the time t...