So far my internship at the Vance Birthplace has been going wonderfully. I have completed around 86 hours at the Birthplace, and have to say that I have enjoyed myself greatly. Lately I have been working with a website called Library Thing and continuing work on my Roving Program. Library Thing is a useful site that allows libraries to inventory their books. It takes data on books from a variety of websites and libraries like Amazon.com and the Library of Congress, so one only needs to find the book and add their own search tags. If the book’s information cannot be found on any of those sites then it needs tt be input manually, which is not so difficult. Once we are finished putting these books online, researchers will be able to look for books on particular subjects in our small library. In doing this I learned just how many rare, unique, and even strange books a small historic site could have, and how they may be an underutilized resource for us students. My Roving Program is still going to focus upon bullet molds, but my salt gourd half of the program will also also involve the gourd ladle, depending on the preference of the individual using the program.
