Sunday, May 27, 2012

Cows in the road!!

Hello lovely blog followers!,

So I went to Jane's dancing show on Friday night. It was super cute! My favorite part was the Lion King set they did. Awesome costumes, awesome music, awesome everything. On the way back however, was when the real excitement began, haha. Whilst driving up the main road to Lanark, we saw two cows being herded down the road by two land rovers! It was ridiculous! I totally took pictures. Will post them in this blog. Saturday was okay. I was planning to go into Glasgow, but I slept in late, so instead I got up and went into town. I bought some summer clothes from this store called Peacocks. And then I endeavored to buy a fan for my room, which I did. Only problem with this plan: I had to walk allllllll the way down from the retail park to the bus stop which is in the center of town mind you, carrying a giant box and a shopping bag. Excitement. Not to mention it was boiling hot outside. But that was good, and then I came back and sat in the pool and in the sauna for a bit. So it was a good day overall. Tomorrow it's back to work on the search room AND I have the parameters for my paper, so I will be starting work on that as well. I am going to Edinburgh this Wednesday so I shall blog about that afterwards. Stay tuned lovelies! (24 days!)---Catherine

p.s. I am including some choice pictures of the British Museum and the Tower of London and Jane's dancing show, plus the cow pictures. Enjoy! :D









 There's me in front of the British Museum. Again, super excited. :D


























 That's me standing outside the walls of the Tower of London! I was excited!!!!










 Site of the scaffold where several famous historical figures were executed ^^ including Anne Boelyn


Thursday, May 24, 2012

Good Day

Hello lovely blog followers!,
I had a pretty good day today! I did some search room work, and then Jane wasn't feeling well so she took me into town because I had a few things to do and she went home to rest before her dancing show tonight. We also met up with Jane's old "flat-mate", gave her the Reader's Digest version of New Lanark and ate lunch. It was fun. But anywho, so I went into town and I went to the salon because let's just talk about my hair for a second. My hair was massive. It was so thick that it was basically the shape of a triangle, and aside from that, it is ROASTING hot outside, and I was basically miserable. So I went to get a haircut. They washed my hair, gave me a head and neck massage afterward, and cut my hair, all for 15 pounds. They did a fabulous job! I love my hair now. So I'm excited about that. Okay back to official blog business. So after that I walked around Lanark by myself, bought some groceries, and caught a cab back down to New Lanark. I was productive today. Also, I'm getting a tan. Very quickly. Two days of sitting outside at lunch/walking around, and I already have a tan on my chest and on my arms (through my cardigan mind you). I'm also pretty sure when I take my shoes off tonight I will have tan lines from where the straps crossed over my feet. Shockingly hot weather. Last week, miserable. It was freezing! Sleet and rain were coming down in buckets. Now? So hot and sunny, it's unbelievable. Today in the search room, all I worked on was a term pick list for the catalog records. Basically, we are trying to come up with a set list of terms we will use to identify things, and also a set list of terms that we want people to use on the catalog record in the different fields that there are to fill in. Tomorrow, I will begin to go through all of their "archived" (i.e. sitting in a filing cabinet organized by theme) material to see what there is so that I know what terms we will even need to consider using. Tomorrow evening I'm going to Jane's dancing show, and this weekend I'm free. Next week on the 30th, I will be going to Edinburgh with Gordon, the world heritage site coordinator (I'm pretty sure that's his title) and Jane to visit the Historic Scotland offices, the Royal Commission offices, and Edinburgh Castle on the Royal Mile. Then on Monday the 4th, I will be going to Loch Lommond and Glencoe (apparently the most beautiful Glen in all of Scotland) and that night is Lanimer Marches, but we'll see how tired I am. The 6th is all who are involved with the search room's trip to Edinburgh to the National Museum and the Archives. The 7th is Lanimer day with Jane, starting at 7:30 am. Oh Lord. Much much MUCH more to come. :) After tomorrow 28 days left. Stay tuned lovelies! --Catherine

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Ordinary day

Hello lovely blog followers!,
I just finished eHive training today, which is essentially an online cataloging tool for small museums etc. to be able to catalog their collections and share them with the public as well. It was interesting, and Jane and I are going to start on standardizing sort of what's going to be entered into each field of the catalog record tomorrow. Aside from that there's not much exciting news to report. Although next week on Friday, I'm probably heading to Edinburgh with a fellow volunteer for a day, so that should be fun. I did figure out the bus, but it costs a pound 45 pence each way, so that's kind of sad. This Friday is Jane's dancing show that her pupils are putting on, so that should be a good time as well. As for today, I'm planning to eat dinner, maybe go to the pool, and hole up in the hotel until it's time for me to sleep. I'll blog soon. Stay tuned lovelies. :)
---Catherine

Saturday, May 19, 2012

London trip!!

Hello lovely blog followers,
OMG. O. M. G.!!! I went to London on Thursday and it was SO. FREAKING. AWESOME! Our first stop was The British Museum, and it was just so absolutely amazing. I can't even put into words how awesome it was. I was floored by all of the stuff they had. I saw parts of the Parthenon, statues from the Mausoleum at Halikanarssos (sp?), Egyptian everything, Mummies, etc etc etc. It was so so incredible and amazing. We also managed to make it to the Tower of London, where I saw...(drum roll)....ANNE BOLEYN'S BURIAL PLACE!!! SO AWESOME! Also just being there knowing that she was once there was just...incredible. I was so humbled. Also got to the see the site of the scaffold she and many others would have been executed on which was just really humbling as well. We saw graffiti on the walls inside one of the towers where prisoners had carved their names, which was a bit eerie but very cool. It was so human and really took me back in time. We had an amazing day there and I hope I get to come back someday with Thomas so he can see the amazing things I saw. Yesterday we went to the Business archives at Glasgow University and took a look at the collections they have from New Lanark, which included Robert Owen's original diary (so awesome), visitor logs, account books, wage tickets, etc. What was really fascinating was all the different kinds of cotton they were trading, and the places they were trading with, which included India, Surinam (sp?), Guadalupe I believe, and many others. The good news we gathered from all of this is that I will have a wealth of sources to work with which is really exciting to find out, and I'm excited to get started. I will try to post some pics of London later. (Bad news Shayna: We could not take pictures inside the chapel where Anne is buried.) Internet has been dodgy so, I'll do my best to keep you all updated. Stay tuned lovelies! ---Catherine

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Down day...

Hello again blog followers!,
Catherine here. Today was a bit of a down day, however we did do some different things so I'll tell you about those. Today Dr. Shefveland and I toured the rest of New Lanark (except for one building, drat), were introduced to several interesting staff members, and learned a lot of good information for my research. We picked up several extremely good leads for my paper's aspect of public health, and poverty reduction, so that's excellent. As well, we learned that New Lanark has several oral histories for us to work with, which is SO very exciting! We learned a couple of different anecdotes, one of which concerned a woman who was accidentally scalped by a ringer machine for drying washed clothes, and another about a foreman beating a young boy in the mills, until Robert Owen came along, dragged him through the mill by the scruff of his neck, and then sacked him on the spot, to make an example of him, and to show his displeasure about a young child being beaten as punishment. We're really excited to see if we can find and cite those stories from the archival materials, and to see if there is any other information concerning hygiene, public sanitation, etc, before Robert Owen's arrival, and after, as well as poverty levels before and after his arrival. My paper will likely be a change over time paper, beginning with Robert Owen's initial goals, and perhaps some background information about the conditions at New Lanark before he was in charge, and then the second half will be how his ideals have endured over time, including a discussion about the  Co-Operative Alliance movement, and how that is still alive and well today. I'm hoping as well to go inside the buildings and take pictures of the interiors, not only for my research, but also to show you all what I'm working in and around. Aside from all of that, we are heading into Glasgow tomorrow to spend the night, and on Thursday we are taking a quick flight to London to go to the British Museum and maybe the Tower of London, so I am super excited about that! Pictures from that will definitely make an appearance, and I'll talk to you guys later. Stay Tuned! ---Catherine Carver

Monday, May 14, 2012

First day of Training

Hello lovely blog followers!

I began training today for the search room I'll be working on finally. I learned a lot about Spectrum, which is a method of cataloging that we will be incorporating into our work in some ways. I took a few pictures of the different forms we will be taking a look at this week, and I will post them here so you can take a look yourselves. Next week we will be working on e-Hive, which is an online..database tool? Today we literally went over all the aspects one must consider when cataloging items/documents/photographs, and as well, the aspects to take into consideration as far as documentation of a collection goes, and the reasons why collections should be documented, and how they should be documented. We also talked about the process of loaning items out between museums, how that should be documented and monitored, and a lot of other important aspects of collections management. I'll also include the pictures of our walk up the nature reserve yesterday here, so you can see the landscape that I'm surrounded by. There are also pictures of my room at the hostel so you can see that as well. They're not very exciting as my room is pretty basic, but nonetheless, interesting I suppose just to see where I'm actually staying for the duration of my internship. The sun is finally out today, so thank goodness for that. It's still freezing, but as long as the sun is out, I'm happy. I will be blogging daily from now on, so make sure you continue to follow me! Hope you enjoy the pictures! Stay tuned lovelies!
Until tomorrow, Catherine