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Department ofHistory

Stories

At Beautiful and Historic Filoli Gardens, Maggie Debrovner Carried Out Archival Work

My internship at Filoli was great! Over the course of my internship I learned various museum operations and got to see firsthand how a museum is run and operated. I worked as an archival intern under the head curator of Filoli, Julie Bly DeVere. I helped catalogue and file documents, photographs and artifacts in archives and special collections. From this I got to see how museum collections are organized and sorted. I also got to take time to learn other museum functions such as architectural surveying and blueprint inventory and organization. Mostly my experience at Filoli allowed me to gain an understanding for how both past and present documentation and inventories allow for the continued maintenance of an historical site. It requires both managing the site as it exists in the present as well as understanding how it functioned in the past. Filoli has grown and changed over the years and it is the job of the museum staff to relate and aid that growth and change.