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As I close the museum each day, I like to take a moment to appreciate the creativity on view in the undersea vehicle exhibit response wall notes, mainly the undersea vehicle drawings by kids. They are priceless. Take the one above, for example:

I hope you stop every once in a while to enjoy the freedom and ease with which so many of our younger visitors share their amazing ideas! --Mary Rogers, Volunteer and Events Coordinator

Do you enjoy talking with new friends about their life experiences? Do you enjoy wordsmithing to create a short piece of writing that others will enjoy? If your answer is yes to either question, you are invited to take over the Volunteer Spotlight feature!

Darlene Iskra, who took me up on this Volunteer Spotlight project early on during the shut-down, and has been doing amazing work with the interviews and write-ups since then, is ready to pass the baton! Take a look at the Volunteer Spotlights from this past year to get a sense of the scope, and let me know if you are interested!

Thank you, Darlene Iskra, for your commitment to highlighting our amazing volunteers over this past year!--Mary Rogers, Volunteer and Events Coordinator

Welcome to Fall! I put my fall decorations out on September 1^st, so really I have been ushering the season in for quite some time. I really enjoy this time of year!

Lindy Dosher

Director

Please join me in welcoming our new team members - volunteers Rashibh Ahluwalia, Sofia Cabrera, Don Carpenter, and Randy McNary! We look forward to getting to know you all better! If you're on a shift with a new volunteer, or training a new volunteer, I hope you can make some connections. New team member bios are being added to the front desk binder as we complete them. --Mary Rogers, Volunteer and Events Coordinator

You do not need to register to participate in these sessions. At the time of the session, simply open a session reminder email (to be sent near the date) and click on the "Join Meeting" link. To participate fully, you will need to use a device that has a camera/webcam and microphone, such as a laptop, smartphone, or tablet. --Mary Rogers, Volunteer and Events Coordinator

Our museum receives incredible levels of support and commitment from our volunteers! We are grateful to currently have three volunteers on the third floor and two in the storage area working to improve our intellectual control of collections by cataloging, scanning, and labeling documents, objects, and photographs. The 14-month closure due to the pandemic put a stop to many projects, and we’re so thankful they have returned to pick up where they left off in 2020. Their work takes time, attention to detail, and extra training in handling accessioned artifacts. They may be behind the scenes, but their work is critical to our mission and day-to-day work. Keep an eye on upcoming Sonar Echo issues for our call for new Collections Management volunteers!

Charles Gundersen embodies dedication to collection cataloging. Since 2007, he has given his time on a variety of projects, all of which have improved intellectual control of our collections. He continues to make excellent progress cataloging the Captain Willard F. Searle archival collection. Begun in late 2013, Charles has (to date) cataloged 36 linear feet of records (of a total 127 linear feet!). He has also written a summary paper of interesting findings from the Searle collection (to date) (click below to download it); we hope he will add to this as he continues to catalog the collection!

Darlene Iskra has been volunteering her time and expertise for nearly 12 years. For our collections department, she has provided thorough and much-needed work creating finding aids for larger archival holdings. These include the Robert C. Sheats Diving Collection, as well as her current project, the Trieste Program documents. This extensive project involves inventorying and describing documents pertaining to many aspects of the Trieste II DSV: its systems, blueprints, etc.

Cathy Wedelstaedt continues to digitize collections documentation as well as objects. Recently she finished scanning the Mine Disposal Handbook, an important and oft-referenced technical manual. Having this digital copy enables us to protect the original 1944 document from handling as we access the book’s content. Currently, Cathy is working on digitizing old collections records that were hand-written. Our accession ledgers are a critical record of our ownership of artifacts, but we are (finally) moving away from hardcopy books and into searchable spreadsheets. Projects like these are so critical for accessing information, whether records or the artifacts themselves, and enable us to better share that information with researchers and visitors alike. We’re so grateful to Cathy’s attention to detail and precision in all these projects!

The most recent additions to our collections-volunteer taskforce, RuthAnn Jassek and Don Jassek, have taken on a torpedo re-labeling project. The goal is to label them all in a uniform and consistent manner. This project is critical for ease of identification and access for research, inventory, and inspections, and we’re so grateful for their help!

Thank you to our Collections Management volunteers! --Lorraine Scott & Beth Sanders, Collections Managers

I’m hoping to get a lot of this “prep” work done by Thanksgiving, then transition to pre-fabrication of the new exhibit itself, cutting plywood mostly. We’re still doing work on the detailed design of the new exhibit so more on that later. --Steve Harvey, Exhibits Fabricator

The Review is a new feature of our monthly newsletter. We seek your reviews of Navy-related books (fiction, nonfiction, childrens, etc.), movies, TV programs, exhibits, or experiences to keep this going! Send them to Mary Rogers. An accompanying photo is most welcome! This is a good way to earn some volunteer hours!