Some of the brightest young minds in history, library and museum studies sifted through historical documents from the local garden club inside the Florida Keys History & Discovery Center (KHDC) on a Monday morning.
Eight students from Florida and as far as California recently began a four-week internship, organizing, processing and digitizing collections donated to KHDC from the likes of Jerry Wilkinson, Jim Clupper and the Upper Keys Garden Club. For interns, digitizing documents, emails and pictures not only helps the museum provide easier access to the Upper Keys’ past, but it also exposes the interns to the unique stories on the island chain.
For the museum, the internship program fulfills a mission to provide a world-class history center while showcasing the Florida Keys in an interactive environment. Located at the Islander Resort, KHDC displays everything from the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane and the Flagler’s Over-Sea Railway to fishing and maritime heritage.
Lisa Kelman is the summer internship program coordinator at KHDC. The program, in its second year, is gaining attention from many students with career aspirations in history and museums. Many applications came to Kelman seeking the opportunity to digitally archive Keys’ history.
“We have a great group of students here,” Kelman said. “With all the applications we received, I wanted to make sure the people we picked were excited about Florida history.”
Alexandra Sarette is a graduate student in museum studies at the University of San Francisco. She spent a portion of her day carefully removing glue from documents in a garden club scrapbook. Sarette said it’s her first time in the Florida Keys.
“This is the smallest museum I’ve worked for,” she said, adding that the experience will better prepare her for other museums.
Sydnee Hammond, of Pensacola, is seeking to obtain her doctorate in Atlantic history at Florida International University. She spent a portion of her day meticulously cataloging some juicy garden club emails.
“I love to see the drama and stories,” she said.
Arianne Cooke, of Tampa, is studying library and information science. She was busy scanning reports and meeting minutes from the garden club dating back to the 1950s.
“In school, I do a lot of genealogy work,” she said. “I like to see how things are connected and change over time.”
KHDC also brought in a biological archaeologist in Annie Sullivan, of Tampa, to study and identify bone fragments and potsherds.
The internship program began July 11 and will conclude Friday, Aug. 4.
