William Robinson, who goes by Bill, is the second of our Great War Exhibit Interns for the Fall 2013 semester. This internship is a joint appointment with the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP) with interns in this position spending one day a week at HSP and one day at Villanova, contributing to a collaborative online exhibit commemorating the Great War that will be launching next year.

Bill grew up in Havertown in the Philadelphia suburbs. He went to Fordham University for both a BA (History) and MA (U.S. History). Bill is now back in Philadelphia and working on a Master of Library Science degree at Drexel University.

Regarding the internship, Bill is looking forward to experiencing hands-on the life cycle of a digital project, seeing how digitized items are brought together and presented to the public. Between Villanova and HSP, Bill is scanning materials, selecting items for inclusion in the digital exhibit, and will eventually contribute to the exhibit website, once that is up and running. He is also excited to be working for “two great institutions that are known for their digital work.”

In his free time, Bill likes reading, playing guitar, and writing songs. He is currently reading The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey.

If he could travel anywhere, Bill would like to visit any big city in America during the Gilded Age. Bill said that time period had “a very interesting convergence of events and social movements happening” and would be interesting to experience.