December 2015

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing this letter to confirm that Peake Nasrallah successfully completed an archival writing
and editing internship with me in the FSU Card Archive (http://fsucardarchive.org) during the Fall
2016 semester. I can attest that Peake is a dedicated student. Despite fighting some illness this
semester, he was committed to finishing the work and completing the requirements of the
internship.
Peakes archival internship consisted of him entering twenty-nine historic postcards and editing six
others in the archive as well as developing an exhibit for future visitors and researchers. To enter
and edit the cards in the archive, Peake learned to use the OMEKA software and the metadata
system that we developed for the site, requiring him to understand the Dublin Core archival
taxonomy as well as about twenty additional written and visual points of metadata entry for the
cards. He had to understand our subject headings, develop a good eye for detail in viewing the
cards, understand postcard genres, and sort through other categorization fields such as the cards
genre or how the card functioned historically. Since students in classes have entered the majority of
cards, interns like Peake also go back and edit cards once he developed the expertise within the
system to make this possible. This is an important part of the process that requires a good eye for
detail and strong editing skills.
In addition to the new entries and edits, Peake completed an exhibit on birds. I find it interesting
how different people look at cards, and different things stand out to them. Thats the value of having
some many people create exhibits in the site. Peakes attention was drawn to the number of birds he
saw on cards and how they were used on cards in different ways. Part of his exhibit was simply to
point out how often birds are featured on cards and to provide more information about the types of
birds and facts about them. But he also included more of a social, cultural reading of some of the
birds in the cards. They may represent cheerfulness, hopefulness, peace, etc., so Peake provided
different interpretations of how these bird images might be functioning in the images on the cards.
Overall, Im pleased with the work Peake completed this semester. I can attest that he fulfilled the
requirements for the English Department internship. It was a pleasure working with him, and Id
recommend him for future opportunities within the related fields of writing, editing, and media.
Sincerely,

Michael Neal, PhD

Associate Professor of English