Every semester, the Illinois Distributed Museum has interns from the History Department at the University of Illinois.
These students are interested in careers that will allow them to teach others history and help people understand our past to better plan for our future.
Our interns often come to the internship with great research skills, and we continue to develop their skills throughout the semester.
Some of them have never done archival research, so it is exciting to have them learn how the University Archives preserves many unique documents and materials.
After researching their topic related to innovation and innovators at the UI, students begin writing their online exhibits.
We discuss what are best practices for museum exhibits, both for physical displays and how that applies to digital exhibits.
We share ways writing for exhibits and public audiences is different from the academic writing they are used to. This means short snippets and content free of jargon.
Interns discover many exciting facts, but not all of them can be included in the exhibit, and so they must determine what best fits into the story of innovation.
Students then turn in a draft of their exhibit, which is edited and fact-checked by staff. Staff will also look for other sources of information on the topic to make sure there is a complete picture of the topic.
The Illinois Distributed Museum has had wonderful interns the past five years, and this semester’s interns are no exception.
The following are a few exhibits our interns have been working on this semester:
- Morgan Fox is working on one of our tour exhibits, so her pieces must be shorter so that they are quick for people to read. One of her tour stops focuses on William “Bill” Cochran Jr. and his development of radio telemetry equipment for tracking animals. Cochran developed technology to track smaller animals like birds, rabbits and raccoons by attaching harnesses or collars to the animals. His equipment was lightweight enough that it did not alter the animals’ behaviors.
- Chris Gimbel worked on an exhibit about Marion Sparks. Sparks was the chemistry librarian in the Chemistry Library, the first departmental library on campus in the early 1900s. She published “Chemical Literature and Its Use,” one of the first guides on chemical literature, and explains why it is important for chemistry students to learn how to research chemistry and its history.
- Jon Haddad wrote about Marguerite Pease, a historian of Illinois and war. She wrote “The Story of Illinois” with her husband and finished and published it after he had died while they were writing it. She was also the director of the Illinois Historical Survey from 1959-1964.
Summer Matthes researched and wrote her exhibit on Louise B. Dunbar. Dunbar joined the university’s History Department in 1920. She published on American history, especially around the political and social forces that impacted the creation of the United States.
You can read more of the students’ work on the Illinois Distributed Museum website.
The Illinois Distributed Museum has online content about the innovations that have come from the UI.
The Illinois Distributed Museum is a project under the direction of the University of Illinois Archives.
See more at distributedmuseum.illinois.edu/.
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