A Day in the Life...

...of Rachel Kassman, photo archivist, development coordinator, building manager and IT liaison at the JMM.

9:00am: I've been at work for 20 minutes already, checking email, paying my electricity bill and beginning to scan photographs for the Meals on Wheels people. I'm also formatting and uploading blog posts from my colleagues!


10:00am: And I'm still scanning photographs for the Meals on Wheels folks. Of course, I've also fielded a phone call from Lenny's next door, about the leaking roof (the museum owns the building), updated Jobi on the security company's findings re: the Lloyd Street Synagogue alarm system (looks like a panel needs to be replaced) and answered questions about a past Trustee donation (turns out a year had been entered incorrectly in our database).

11:00am: Finally finished scanning those photos (I think!), but still need to double check the order form, burn the cd, package and mail it off! You wouldn't think scanning 18 photos would take so long, but with all the other little things that pop up, even small jobs sometimes take forever. Now I need to read a lease (*shudder* nothing like legalese to put you in a good mood)!

The roof in question.

12:00pm: Met with Karen and Jennifer to discuss a small companion exhibition to Chosen Food, focusing on Maryland-based Jewish food businesses. This meeting, of course, expanded to include discussion of the next issue of Generations, the possibility of a "theme year" for the Museum and how to bring collections and programming closer together!

Looking very serious and professional in the library!

1:00pm: Lunch! Then I got those scans mailed out (thank goodness). Then I had to run home to clean my kitchen and show my house! (I'm currently in the oh-so-fun process of finding another roommate).


2:00pm: Showing my house! Fingers crossed everyone.

3:00pm: Back at work! Got some bad news about our proposed exhibition website design. Not sure what's going to happen yet...might be back to the drawing board. Again.


4:00pm: I'm not really sure where the last hour went. I made myself some hot chocolate, poked around in the collections database for a photo of Sadie and Emil Crockin and touched base with a few people around the office. Huh. 4 o'clock already!

5:00pm: Can't stay late today, I've got two more people coming to see the house! But I've spent part of the last hour putting together this blog post! Hope you enjoyed this glimpse into the glamorous life of me!

BLOG: A Dramatic Miniseries, Writing an Event Post

Beginning in September, staff members of the Jewish Museum of Maryland will all be required to contribute to our online presence. As a way of easing them into this new frontier, the web mistresses created this miniseries. We hope you enjoy the first installment!

After sitting on the 1-83 for an extra twenty minutes, Amelia arrives to work in a tizzy. She chucks her lunch in the fridge, evades small talk, powers up her email, and is greeted with an outlook reminder "BLOG POST TODAY!"

Amelia: Blergh. I really need to work on my Generations article. But the web wizards will kill me if I don't get this done, so I guess I'm blogging. What should I write about though?

Amelia picks up the phone and calls her buddy Sven. He always has good ideas, being from Svedan and all.

Amelia: Yo, Sven.

Sven: Jah?

Amelia: I have to write this stupid blog post today and I'm drawing a total blank. Ideas?

Sven: Well, I wrote one last week about an article I read on mythical Svedish unicorns. But that makes sense because my job is cryptozoologist at the Karlstad Zoo. Since you're an archivist, why don't you write about something in your collection?

Amelia: Genius! I just finished processing a manuscript collection. Thanks, Sven. This was totally worth the long distance call to Svedan. Next time you're in town we can hit the Ikea meatball counter. My treat.

Now that Amelia has an idea, she needs to do some information gathering. First, she pulls up a finding aid.

Amelia: This biographical data is pretty well written (go me!). It'll make a great base for my blog post.

Amelia scans the finding aid and picks out a couple of interesting documents to use as examples of the collection. Next she checks if there are any objects or photographs included.

Yay! Amelia has found one related object and three great photographs.

Amelia: Perfect! I'll use the bio paragraph and then write a few sentences about the object and photos. I better go take a picture of the object.

Amelia photographs the object in question and scans the photos. She writes out her blog post, checks it for errors, and places everything in the appropriate folder (after naming it, of course).

________________________________________________________________

Boo! Amelia has not been able to find any related objects. She decides to look on the interwebs for related material.

Amelia: Oh! Here's a great picture on the Pratt website. As long as I credit the image and link back to it, this will be perfect for my blog post.

Amelia writes her blog post, checks it for errors, and places everything in the appropriate folder (after naming it, of course).

Be sure to check back next Friday for the second installment of our miniseries.