Lindsey Wiggins

Collections Management

Hello, my name is Linsey Wiggins. I am a junior at the University of North Alabama and I am currently majoring in English with a minor in public history and Spanish. After graduation, I would really like to continue into museum work; I think preserving artifacts and making history accessible for the public as well as continuing to honor and remember history is very important for our society.

During my internship at Pope’s Tavern, I did Collections Management. If we received or excavated artifacts, I was responsible for making sure they had a place in an online database to keep track of them, as well as making sure they had a home in storage places. Some artifacts I put into our online museum CatalogIt, making them accessible via the internet. the artifacts generally ranged from different pieces of glass, brick, stone, sometimes bottles, various animal bones, nails, and fragments of various materials.

I found the internship really helped me understand what happens behind the scenes at museums, how museums handle collections not on display, and how museums keep track of artifacts. I also really enjoyed the archaeology aspect when I attended Archaeology at Pope’s Tavern field days. Overall, I think the work I did at the museum was very informative and made me further interested in working at museums in the future.

I think the most memorable items I encountered working at the museum were a few glass bottles that had been donated to us. One was likely a perfume bottle, and the glass work was very interesting, and it feels like handling such objects takes you to a different period of time. It made me stop and wonder who at one point in time might have also held this bottle, who it belonged to and how much it had traversed the world before it ended up in my hands. That is one think I really enjoy working in a museum and handling artifacts, I think preservation of these artifacts is important for the community and we should treasure these items as someone once did as we can’t simply replace them. Overall, it has been an absolutely wonderful experience interning at Pope’s Tavern.

Ted Herndon

My name is Ted Herndon and I’m a senior at UNA. I’m a double major in history and German, with a minor in public history. After I graduate, I’m planning on going to graduate school at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville. While there, I’m planning to study Cultural Heritage Resource Management and Museum Studies. After I finish my graduate studies, I want to work in museum management or exhibit design.

During my internship at the Florence Indian Mound Museum I worked to design an exhibit with Native American input. To do this, I compiled questions and posed them to those entities with which we have relationships. I did this as part of the museum’s effort to further include Native American voices in exhibits as these exhibits evolve. As the museum tells the story of the Native American peoples of this area, it is vital to try to include these peoples in the process of exhibit design.

I have learned not just about designing exhibits, but also how to include the community in that process. I have learned about docent work and general management. I have learned a lot about what a typical day is like when on works at a museum. I feel that these experiences have enriched my education and given me a good idea of what working for smaller museums feels like.