by Andrew Walker
An organization like the Royal Ontario Museum is one that is run by curators and historians, by researchers and archaeologists, and by tour guides and academics. Of course, it is also run very heavily behind-the-scenes — nothing that big doesn’t have a huge behind-the-scenes! — and it is there that I’ve found myself in this internship in history.
I like to joke that I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere to find myself here. In school, I study Professional Writing and Communication as majors, so this was not a place I ever expected to be. And yet, here I find myself, after having met a database technician (and archaeological scientist) who could make use of a communications intern because of an upcoming communications project. What were the odds? Here, in the museum that dominated my childhood summers, I found a project I could tie into all aspects of my academic life.
Unfortunately, that project isn’t quite ready yet. Fortunately, there’s still a lot to do.
As the Royal Ontario Museum continues to update, revise, and improve its digital catalogue, the need for blogs, social media splash, and content steadily increases. For every gallery and collection in the museum — which is a lot — there are between a dozen and a hundred things worth writing about.
When a single artefect can represent a dozen stories -- and this particular one marks the conclusion of the prehistoric era in Egypt -- the potential for content is endless.
So, for the past six weeks, that’s been by primary responsibility — writing. I’ve been around each gallery in the Museum at least twice, and each time, I’m there to learn, to see a new angle, to teach myself as much as I can (and direct lost visitors as best as I can; apparently I "look like I work here"). From there, the inspiration for content forms.
So far, a lot of what I’ve done has been invisible. There is one published blog post under my name — my trial run, from the second week of the internship, my test to see if I was at the level I needed to be for the projects ahead. It was a modest success, and thus far, the only visible one.
The strange part about developing content for future projects is not knowing in what ways — or when — that content will be utilized. Hidden, deep in the darkest corridors of the closely guarded museum servers, are a number of blog posts, waiting to see the light. And for me, it’s strange to have them just sitting there, and waiting.
And waiting.
And waiting.
But soon, they will rise… and ideally with a lot more great content along with them!
You thought I was kidding about the closely guarded thing, didn't you. You can't mess with this thing!