UTA doctoral student joins the circus...

Monday, Apr 03, 2017

…museum!

UTA doctoral student William J. Hansard has been awarded a ten-week paid summer internship at The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota, FL. During his time at the museum, Hansard (who is working toward a certificate in archival administration along with his Ph.D.), will assist Ringling personnel digitize over 300 circus route books housed in their collections. Similar to yearbooks, circus route books provide detailed accounts of the cities and towns to which the circus traveled each season as well as valuable information on personnel and events, photographs, and statistics. The Museum’s holdings date from 1842-1969. Earlier this year the Council on Library and Information Resources awarded a collaborative three-year, $268,00 grant to the Ringling Museum of Art, Illinois State University, and the Circus World Museum in Baraboo, WI to make these historic items accessible to researchers through the creation of a digitized online portal.

Congratulations to William Hansard!