December 2017

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing this letter to confirm that Hannah Katz successfully completed an archival writing
and editing internship with me in the FSU Card Archive (http://fsucardarchive.org) during the
fall semester 2017 I can attest that Hannah completed the terms of our agreement and did her
work with a high level of professionalism and responsibility.

The internship consisted of entering historic postcards into the digital archive using a metadata
system that we have developed, which required her to understand the Dublin Core archival
taxonomy as well as about twenty additional written and visual points of metadata entry for the
cards. Hannah entered over 25 cards into the archive, nearly 5,000 words, in this portion of her
internship. In addition, she edited postcards that had been previously entered into the system. In
both of these tasks, Hannah demonstrated proficiency in the OMEKA platform, a good eye for
detail in viewing the cards and editing the text, and an understanding of postcard genres and how
the card functioned historically. In doing this work, she has developed an awareness of how
archivists access, categorize, annotate, and develop finding aides for making artifacts searchable
by researchers and other visitors to the site.

In addition to the editing and new entries, Hannah collaborative curated an exhibit that is unique
to the archive. While most researchers focus on what is on the cards (usually the images but also
the words and other marking), Hannah and Shannon focused on what isnt there. As part of a
class in Visual Rhetoric that they were both taking from me at the same time as the internship,
we read about how part of visual analysis is taking note of whats not pictured. In their case,
Hannah and Shannon created an archive on postcards from Mount Vernon, noting the
conspicuous absence of people. While the cards all showed pristine landscaping and perfectly
tidy interiors, the cards didnt picture the slaves that would have contributed to this picture
perfect postcard. Its work like this that motivates me to continue working in the archive. I
believe Hannahs contributions will be a great benefit to those who visit the site and will remind
people to think about what they arent seeing in the cards as much as what they are seeing.

Overall, Im pleased with the work Hannah completed, and I can attest that she more than
fulfilled the requirements for the English Department internship.

Sincerely,

Michael Neal, PhD

Associate Professor of English