Interning with the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney

I don’t remember when I first became interested in issues associated with digital heritage… but I know that my interest was piqued after I stumbled upon Seb Chan’s Fresh + New(er) blog years ago. Thus when Seb sat near me at a session at MW2011, I decided to introduce myself.

He was mobbed by people immediately after the session finished, and I thought I had missed my chance… but fortunately that wasn’t the case. Seb approached the small group I was in not long after and on the spur of the moment, I decided not only to say hi but also to ask whether I could become an intern with the web team at the Powerhouse. And excellently, Seb said yes.

So I’m now interning at the Powerhouse Museum one day a week – something that will be great for my research and hopefully ground it far more in reality (I know I can be an academic idealist at times). I’ve been there a couple of times already, and got to check out some of the quirky museum objects; do a little bit of work on the Museum Metadata Exchange; and to write a couple of blog posts for the Museum’s Photo of the Day blog. This first of these posts is up today, which is pretty awesome. So if you are interested, check it out: Fritzi Scheff demonstrating Magnavox for Fifth Liberty loan in New York City.

This is just the next in a lifetime’s worth of internships I’ve taken on… I have occasionally seriously considered writing my profession as ‘intern’ on forms. But every single one has led to interesting opportunities and great new knowledge – which is the same reason I do things like volunteer with MCN2011. And which is also why it is very cool to have the chance to work with the same team that first inspired me to pursue this career.