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This internship was a unique among the dozens of past library scholar internships. This project bridged the skills and the artistry (music and turntablism) with the business and social aspects of being an artist out in the world. While many internships allow students to learn new skills or complete new projects, few combine all of these aspects and go beyond the simple act of creating to the more professional development skills of performing, promotion, contracts, and producing art that meets the needs of a client/audience. This last aspect was one of the happy surprises for both interns, who noted how important it was to learn about the history and context of hip hop as well as how to "read the room" or be able to interact with the audience and respond in a live setting. Learning new art skills is so often a personal and individual pursuit, particularly in the early phases of learning. This innovative internship went beyond the basics to examine the culture, the people, and the professional aspects of this art form.
Two interns participated in the DJ Internship known as “Techno Jeli: the DJ internship” or “Bards of the 21st: the DJ internship,” sponsored by the Makerspace and DJ Yorona. During the spring semester of 2024, Liam Boyd and Colin Jang learned about many aspects of the art form, including the basics of DJing technology, the history of DJing and its cultural analogues, the modern DJ practice of mixing, and the business side of DJing. These topics were chosen to meet the ultimate goals of the internship: to facilitate learning about the art of DJing, the technical aspects of DJing, and the business/self-promotion side of DJing from the perspective of a former mobile DJ.
Colin and Liam both went through the workshops led by DJ Yorona and learned about the technology, how to read a room to inform choices, shadowed DJ Yorona at an event, and even practiced what they learned by spinning some records on their own in front of this live audience. Unfortunately, their internships were interrupted at the end of the spring 2024 semester when university administration closed campus as an unprecedented response to student speech and protest on campus calling for a ceasefire to the war in Gaza.
To cap off his internship experience, Liam created a video of a 45-minute set that he performed. Our original plan was for Liam to perform live in the library, which for a beginner may sound intimidating, but as an already experienced performing musician, Liam didn't have the same level of trepidation that many of us do when performing a new skill live in front of an audience! However, due to the unforeseen campus closure at the end of the spring 2024 semester, Liam was unable to perform his set live.
Watching his set, you may get a sense of what DJ Yorona discovered: "Fluid, dynamic, plenty of tasteful effects processing, the esoteric mixed with the popular/familiar was pleasant too. Its evident [Liam has] been practicing and had a consistent thematic element to [his] set. Fun, loud, bass heavy, and a little bit for everyone." And Liam noted in his post-internship reflection that he valued what he learned about the culture of hip hop through this experience: "Now, I will go forth into the world wielding one of the 4 original elements of hip-hop with awareness that I can just as easily share the community history as I would spin some sicknasty beats."
"I was able to discover my own manner of mixing, which unlocked an entirely new way of seeing music. I always knew it strongly affected the energy of the space it filled, but never that the gradients between pieces could be so artfully blended. I will use my newfound skills for good, and spread both charm and whimsy in the only way I know how."
- Liam Boyd
Colin's final project for this internship was to create song using a "bootleg acapella" -- a sleeveless and label-less record of unknown origin. Solidly in the tradition of hip hop, this approach uses recorded music from other artists and puts a new spin on it. [For copyright purposes, we are not sharing this publicly.] This was a collaboration with DJ Yorona and they had to work together despite not being able to meet in person due to the campus closure, so Colin also learned an additional skillset of asynchronous collaborative practices.
DJ Yorona noted that Colin's experience at the live event was a highlight of the internship: "I am glad that they really benefited from the shadowing opportunity, that was the whole point. Give them a chance to put it into action using connections I had in the community. I couldn't have planned it better." Colin noted similarly: "During the event I was DJing with Henry and Liam, I got to put all of what I learned earlier into practice. Making sure to crossfade tracks together in order to create smooth transitions between songs, taking song requests and playing them in a certain order so the flow of the music can keep going, and being able to find my own songs to add to the mix when a smooth transition can’t be found are all skills I was able to put into practice during that DJing event."
"I was surprised at the amount of social awareness needed to DJ. It made me realize how much thought goes into each transition and each song choice. I’m also impressed with the amount of decision making DJs have in their line of work."
- Colin Jang
Anne Howard (MA in English, 2022) built a unique internship during the Spring 2022 semester that bridged working at the library with working in the community. The internship included time spent at the Cal Poly Humboldt Special Collections and Digital Media Lab as well as the Clarke Historical Museum, working in partnership with the Humboldt Asians and Pacific Islanders in Solidarity (HAPI) and the Eureka Chinatown Project (ECP).
Three projects were completed as a result of the bridging between these communities: a research guide for Eureka’s Historic Chinatown that includes digitized items from the ‘Chinese in Humboldt’ pamphlet file and an accompanying finding aid, a 360 virtual tour of the Clarke Historical Museum, and a 360 virtual tour of Eureka’s Historic Chinatown.
These projects helped to create a bridge from the past to the present, and produce more opportunities for the Humboldt community and beyond to learn about Eureka Chinatown. From digitized newspaper articles to a VR experience, the importance of sharing the historical contexts that shape our world today cannot be overlooked. Anne hopes that this project will support current and future students, researchers and activists.
Anne was looking for a way to learn some new skills and connect with the community. Having no experience in Special Collections or Digital Media, the learning curve was steep. However, the result was greater than could’ve been imagined, and it has been a wonderful experience. With the skills learned in the Digital Media Lab, Anne even incorporated a 360 video into her thesis project.
Anne's thesis project research is on developing reading strategies by applying critical cartography methods and counter-mapping theories to literature and literary analysis. She credits this internship with the experience of listening, learning, and witnessing the strength of community collaboration.
The research guide was compiled with the assistance of Archivist and Digital Publishing Specialist Sarah Godlin. Anne digitized over 50 items from the pamphlet file related to Eureka's Historic Chinatown and the Chinese residents of Humboldt County. She then organized them according to year, ranging from 1860 to 2017 (with a handful of undated items) and created a detailed finding aid with citations.
Visit: Aiding Eureka Chinatown Research
The 360 virtual tour photos and video of the Clarke Historical Museum were created with the technology and support of the Digital Media Lab and Learning Librarian Tim Miller. The video tour included original music provided by Aaron Laughlin. It was shot with a GoPro 360 MAX camera and edited with Adobe Premiere Pro. The 360 photos of the Clarke reached thousands of views on Google Maps within weeks of posting!
The 360 virtual tour of the Eureka Chinatown was produced with the help of Tim Miller and with the research and existing walking tour resources of Katie Buesch, the Clarke Historical Museum, HAPI and ECP. Guidance, supervision and support was provided by Vicki Ozaki, Sheri Woo and Brieanne Mirjah-D’Souza. The narration for the video was done by Katie as well as Dave Young Kim. It was shot with a GoPro 360 MAX and produced and edited using Audacity and Adobe Premiere Pro. The 18 minute tour can be enjoyed by students, researchers, historians and community members in Eureka and around the world.
Asking a generous colleague to write original music was a great way to avoid having to use a licensed song for the Clarke tour video.
Writing a script to follow for the Chinatown virtual tour was helpful for the recording process and for adding in accurate subtitles on YouTube later.
Working one day at the Cal Poly Humboldt library and one day at the Clarke Museum provided a variety of perspectives and hands-on experiences.
Setting up regular meetings to check in with HAPI and ECP was very helpful.
360 video editing can be very time consuming.
Consider the way most people will enjoy the video when editing -- i.e. will they use YouTube on a desktop or their phone or a VR system? Knowing this will help you to make editing decisions.
File storage and sharing can get tricky when working with several community groups. Stay organized from the beginning, and consider hard drive formatting settings in advance.
Cherish Fulcher and Marie Lopez were the first MiR at the HSU Library Makerspace. The Makerspace was launched in Fall 2019 and the MiR program was intended to help us establish the space as one that is open to all HSU students and promotes interdisciplinary projects and equity. The main goal in our call for proposals was:
HSU Library is seeking two Makers in Residence (MiR) to support achieving the Library Diversity & Social Justice Working Group’s goal of making our collections, services, and events equitable, inclusive, and reflective of our diverse campus community. We are seeking students from all majors and disciplines who are passionate about making, diversity, equity, and inclusion for this stipend-based internship.
We were excited when we received their proposals because both had ideas and visions of projects that met these goals and also had ideas for how to teach and inspire others to become makers.
For more information about their projects, visit the Maker-In-Residence project homepage where you can see and hear:
In their time with SkillShops since December 2018, Mari Lopez was a student assistant and helped create the SkillShop Leaders initiative for Fall 2019. This collaborative effort with the Cultural Centers for Academic Excellence (CCAEs) aimed to create SkillShops for students who frequent the various centers. As the coordinating liaison, Mari set up communication avenues between the MultiCultural Center, African American CAE, and El Centro to nurture possible topics that the student staff felt were needed as Skillshops. By creating the opportunity for diverse SkillShop programming, we are working towards an equitable campus community that nurtures all forms of knowledge and experiences. For our first SkillShop in collaboration with El Centro, we had Surviving College: Building Community, facilitated by Jonathan Pena, on ways to find community and access the cultural communities and their events. This SkillShop highlighted the importance of building a strong community to help you through your college career and addressed important needs given that many students struggle with finding community in college, especially in a rural town like Arcata, California.
As a Critical Race, Gender and Sexuality Studies major with a minor in Native American Studies, Mari was able to apply their knowledge of structural oppressions embedded within the institution of higher education. They recognized that there is a need for more Skillshops tailored towards students of color and the adversity we experience in order for the Library to be a more equitable space for all students.
Christina Cordova began interning with the DML in the Fall of 2017 where she created and facilitated the SkillShop How to Design Buttons using Adobe Illustrator (see more below) and then in Spring 2019 with Create Your Own Business Card Using Adobe Illustrator. By facilitating these SkillShops, she wanted to bring awareness to the availability of Adobe Creative Cloud programs on various computer labs and desktops on campus. By navigating Adobe Illustrator for an hour, she hoped that it could spark an interest in graphic design among her peers and reveal an opportunity into the design courses offered on campus. She also hoped that attendees would gain a new skill that they could apply in future projects such as with personal projects, campus clubs, or publications on campus.
With her major in Art Education, she was able to apply lesson planning and graphic design expertise to guide her peers throughout the program and were given an overview of the tools. Instructional worksheets were provided that are also available in the Digital Media Lab in a binder, containing step by step directions on how to download fonts, vector graphics, and images from free source websites.
Carlos Lemus created a training video for Scholars Without Borders during the Fall 2018 semester. He conducted interviews to capture the personal experiences of undocumented and mixed status students at HSU. He then edited the footage into a short video to be used in trainings for educating HSU staff, faculty, and student staff and leaders about how they can support undocumented students. Carlos worked with Scholars Without Borders because he enjoys helping people get equitable access to the resources they need for their success.
The previous semester, Carlos worked as a facilitator for the Scholars Without Borders trainings and took that experience and knowledge to inform his process for crafting this video. He used the GoPro Hero 6 Black camera with the built-in microphone and edited his footage using Camtasia.
Special note: In order to respect and preserve the anonymity of the interviewee, the video Carlos created is not publicly available. If you are interested in learning about the experiences of undocumented and mixed status students at HSU, we encourage you to attend a Scholars Without Borders training (events are listed on the SWB website as needed).
Rosibeth Cuevas, Grecia Alfaro, Phil Santos and Vanessa Cota created these video shorts as part of the HSU Student Snapshots project, which was showcased at the 2018 ideaFest.
