Summer Week 4

 Hello readers!This fourth week of my internship took a slightly different path. Instead of my usual schedule with Eric at the Brevard Veterans Memorial Center, I had the opportunity to attend a special training session at the University of Central Florida's Center for Humanities and Digital Research (CHDR).

The training was led by UCF graduate student Sarah Boye, who guided us through some of the incredible digital tools available at the center. We received hands-on training with their large-scale Titan scanner, a powerful scanner capable of creating incredibly detailed digital reproductions of paper documents. The scanner was detailed enough that we could see the exact penstrokes on the postcards we scanned.

We also learned how to operate smaller, more portable scanners, which are essential for a community focused initiative called a  History Harvest. I learned that a History Harvest is an event where community members can bring in their personal artifacts to be professionally scanned and digitized. Alongside the scanning, oral histories are often recorded, capturing the personal stories and memories associated with the items. 

This training was very helpful. Gaining experience with these different scanning technologies and understanding the History Harvest model will help me going forward. I am excited to bring these skills back to my internship at the BVMC and explore how we can potentially use these methods to further enhance the museum's collection and community engagement. The ability to digitize artifacts and record the oral histories of veterans is a skill set I know will be invaluable not only for the rest of this summer but for my future career in public history.

Stay tuned for more updates when I return to the museum next week!

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