Internship at Rosenberg

Girls' Musical Club attendance sheet, 1922-1923. Box 1, Folder 3-6, Galveston Musical Club Records, MS75-0007. Rosenberg Library, Galveston, Texas.

By Mia Sorrells

For my last semester at Texas A&M University at Galveston, I had the opportunity to internship at the Special Collections Department located on the fourth floor of the Rosenberg library. On my first day, I was introduced to the different collections that the Galveston and Texas History Center has, as well as the kind of work that an archivist does daily. Before this internship, I had never worked with the handling and organization of old artifacts, but with the support and encouragement that I received from my colleagues I was able to learn an extensive amount about the work of an archivist.

During my internship, I was given many projects to work on that further developed my understanding of working in an archive. My first project consisted of learning how to work the Galveston and Texas History Center website, which included a large amount of specific collections that could be found at the special collections department. I did research on the Galveston music scene, where I had the chance to look through old brochures, pictures, newspaper clippings, and sheet music. My colleagues aided me through this process by teaching me how to pull out manuscript boxes and vertical files that included these artifacts. Other projects I worked on included creating and organizing a spreadsheet for topographic maps, transcribing letters, and taking inventory for the Morgan Room collection. Without this internship, I would have never had the opportunity to see and handle these artifacts.

The Galveston and Texas History center is a wonderful place to learn about Galveston and Texas history, while also getting to see artifacts that you may not get to see anywhere else. The archivists that I worked with were extremely helpful and supportive, and I learned so much about the kind of work they do, which has given me an interest to do something with archives in the future.