After spring semester ended last year, I was on my way for starting my summer internship. For this first internship with Hester Blum, I was taken on as a preliminary researcher of sorts. Since I live in the Philadelphia suburbs, I was able to take the train into Philadelphia during the summer to go to many of the libraries there and put together a bibliography of works that looked suitable for Hester’s project, to make her research easier and more direct when she got to these libraries herself. Hester’s project had to do with polar exploration in the 19th century, particularly artifacts printed in exotic locales, such as on board ship.
One of the nice things about this internship was the fact that I had nearly free reign in how I spent my days, how often I went to the city, and even in what I searched through. Though frightening at first to be thrown into the world of research by myself, I came to really enjoy finding my own way in these research libraries, deciding how long to spend in each one and taking lunch breaks when my sinuses could no longer take the pressure of being constantly surrounded by decaying books. I spent a lot of time at The Library Company, where more than helpful librarians aided me in discovering a section of their materials that are not listed in the catalogue, so that I could look through them myself and determine their worth for the project. I have to admit, when I went up to the room that held all the un-catalogued works, I found myself getting really excited by all the old books surrounding me and curious about what was contained in their pages. It’s moments like those when I know I picked the right major. I ended the summer with a lengthy bibliography from all the libraries, documenting the lives of explorers as well as my own explorations within the research world.