Name: Katy Hollady
Year: 2016
Major: Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology
What’s happening? We’d love to hear how your internship is going! Greetings form Bryn Mawr College Special Collections! This summer I have been working in the Art and Artifacts collection here on campus. I have been working on uploading metadata for the object images in the database, taking photos and updating object records with those photos, updating website HTML, and I have had the opportunity to learn and implement Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) technology. While the metadata and HTML is interesting the RTI is a super cool piece of technology. It allows artifacts or objects to be seen and studied in a way that conventional photography and scanning cannot provide. And RTI image is a compilation of several photos taken of the object with the light source placed at different positions. The result of an RTI image allows you to utilize any shadows, highlights, raking lights that the flash creates to see details such as inscriptions, faded paint, layers of sketches, and many more that otherwise would not be easily seen or noticed by the naked eye. We even found a pair of finger prints on the Bryn Mawr Painter! RTI is extremely fascinating and great for the college to have in their toolbox. I hope both professors and students will take advantage of the RTI Tool and images to provide another angle to their studies and research. Wishing all you Bryn Mawrters a summer filled with excitement and knowledge! To read more about the RTI project visit the Special Collections blog.
How I heard about my internship: I found the information for this internship through Bryn Mawr College’s Summer Funding web page and was encouraged by a TA in one of my archaeology classes to apply.
Why I applied for my internship: I was looking for an internship that would introduce me to the world of conservation and preservation or relate to my studies and interest in Archaeology and Technology. Fortunately, this internship has encompassed all of these areas!