Hello! A Small Introduction

 Hello! My name is Koda Drake, and I am a third year Museum Studies student. I remember being absolutely fascinated by museums when I was a child. On one occasion, I went to the Franklin Institute while they were hosting an exhibit on Tutankhamen, and I remember being completely awestruck by everything in the exhibit. I wasn't sure at the time if that was something that I would be able to do for a job, but that became my dream job for several years.

While I am much older than I was at the time of my visit to the Franklin Institute, I am still absolutely awestruck by Ancient History, particularly Ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian history. My interests have branched out a bit, and I find Early American and Pre-Colonial American history to be of particular interest. Art History, notably Rococo, Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism, are also some of the subjects I am most interested in. 

In regards to Museum Studies and potential work within the field, I am interested in becoming a collections manager or an exhibit designer. I would love to work on increasing accessibility in and to museums, though I am not quite sure how I would start with that. I have past experience with collection work. For several semesters now, I have been slowly working on creating a finding aid for the technical literature at Image Permanence Institute in Rochester. That project has involved cataloging the various manuals within the collection and creating a working finding aid after the complete list has been made. I spent a summer in Genova, Italy working with the Galata Museo del Mare as a collections management intern. I helped transfer information about their collection to an external database while also providing aid in moving, storing, and restoring some objects in their collection. My most recent internship experience has been with the Genesee Country Village and Museum working on cleaning and cataloging wooden font types. Unrelated to any particular requirements, I spend time doing transcription work through the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian Institute. 

July 2019; Genova, Italy; This photograph shows some of the preparatory work I had to do for creating object files in the external database. The museum did not have photos of all the pieces in their collection, and I need to capture images of some works already on display.

[Image Description: The above image is a color photograph. A corner of a room in a museum is visible. On the left blue wall, there are five paintings of similar sizes. These painting show ships at sea. On the right blue wall, there is one visible painting of a ship at sea. The right blue wall is partially obscured from view by another blue wall in the foreground with no visible paintings on it.]