This has been a fairly odds-and-ends week for me–a little cataloging, several public tours, reading applications for summer internships, tracking down object sizes for this summer’s Westward Ho! exhibit. Nothing especially noteworthy, so I thought I’d devote this blog entry to some really cool Internet finds that have come across my desk.
First, courtesy of my mother, was this New York Times article about the “Art Handler Olympics” held at a New York gallery. Art handlers are professionals who specialize in moving, packing, transporting, and installing works of art. Here at the Rosenbach we do our own exhibit installation and do a lot of our own moving and packing, but we also use Philly-based art handlers when we’re dealing with especially large or complicated items (such as when we moved the Baillon clock from the second floor down to the dining room). Anyway, the “art handler olympics” included such events as being dragged around NYC streets in a packing box and holding 60 pound framed pieces of lead steady on a wall. The New York Daily News also did a piece, which included this fun video. (Warning, there is an ad that plays at the beginning)
Next is the American Centuries website from the Memorial Hall Museum in Massachusetts, which I found out about via the American Historical Association blog.
I have seen lots of museum web projects over the years, but this one made me want to waste my day playing with it and then run home and show it to my kids (if my boss is reading this, don’t worry, I didn’t actually waste all day on it….). It has tons of different activities, from dressing people up in period clothing, to watching videos of reenactors using 18th-century tools, to testing your ability to read old manuscripts, plus oral histories, ability to search the collection and more. I was pretty darn impressed.
Also brought to my attention by the AHA blog, is “Wet With Blood” from the Chicago Historical Society, which allows you to explore whether or not their Mary Lincoln cloak has the blood of Abraham Lincoln on it using both historical and scientific analysis.
It’s really neat interactive website, especially for Lincoln buffs like myself, although it is a bit wordy–I had to scroll through lots of screens to get to the info I was most interested in. But I do definitely recommend hopping over and taking a look.
Finally, a quick heads up about a new Marianne Moore blog, run by Patricia C. Willis, formerly of the Rosenbach and then curator of the Yale Collection of American Literature. I particularly like the photo of Moore’s “Arctic Ox” on a zoo stairway.
Hopefully these sites can keep you busy until next week, when I will return to Rosen-news.