A Letter from the Arab American National Museum

This Letter from the Field was shared with us by Crystal Labrosse – MSP15

Today, the Arab American National Museum hosted a book signing with Ralph Nader in conjunction with his induction into the Automobile Hall of Fame. The event was a big success. Since the event was hosted in the library just outside my office, they asked me to be on standby, offering to take photos for the people who were having books signed. I got to meet Ralph (we’re on a first name basis now) and exchange jokes about the awkwardness of photographing him repeatedly. He’s much friendlier than I expected and very down to earth and in touch with his Arab American heritage. Ralph is included in part of the permanent exhibition “Making an Impact” at the museum and expressed how much he enjoyed his visit today. The event kicked off with a 20 minute talk by Mr. Nader discussing his upbringing and family traditions and then concluded with book signings.

The practical side of the internship has been running smoothly. I’ve finished with the inventory assignment they gave me and working on learning how to properly accession items into the archives and collections through Past Perfect; I continue to upload the items I’ve digitized onto their research website using a program called CONTENTdm. It’s the slow period for the museum, but I have worked on creating a survey both online and for groups, asking questions about their newest exhibition, “What We Carried.” Since summer is slow for the museum, there haven’t been many visitors or group tours, but I’m surveying who I can before I leave and putting it all into one document for them to easily access. I only have two weeks left of my internship and I can already tell it’s going to be hard to say goodbye to a great team of people.