Lara: Thursday + Friday, June 22-23

The past two days have been very different, and both very rewarding. On Thursday, Maeve and I continued pursuing information held within the archives. Continuing that work has been very helpful for further contextualizing the diverse nature by which the collection came into the institution, however, there seems to be a strong basis for missionary engagement in the acquisition and ultimate donation of material. Later on in the day, I decided to begin compiling the object lists shared with us in a google drive spreadsheet (which should be available for everyone to add to in the folder). So far I have seen a large preponderance of material, especially the ivories, coming from Oldman and Umlauff. By continuing to compile, add to, and clean the data we are gathering about these objects, I believe that it will become even more clear where to search in the archives for relevant contextual sources and what the collection of these objects says about the institution and its mission at a certain historical moment.

Speaking of gathering and organizing data, I was so excited to begin conducting visitor surveys in the hall today, and thanks to largely Isabella and Maeve's efforts we gathered 20 completed surveys! While it was difficult getting comfortable again in the process of approaching complete strangers,  I found that when I overcame my initial trepidation I remembered how much I enjoyed engaging people about their experiences. No two people interpret things the same way. As a result, I always learn something new about the ways people see the world when I ask them questions. However, at times, it was difficult for visitors to open up and share their opinions. Most of the responses to the questions resulted in one word answers, which I had to probe more explicitly to get more substantial opinions.

Each survey reinforced my understanding that the ways in which visitors ultimately respond to queries depends upon the social dynamics of surveying. Thus, I feel that a proactive, initiative taking approach on the part of the surveyor is the most successful way to consistently get responses. Otherwise it is difficult to gather responses because people feel uncomfortable approaching surveyors or just don't want to. I look forward to tailoring my approach further as I move into more surveys tomorrow.

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