Five Questions (The Intern Edition): Camron T. Lee

This post features the Library’s ST&B 2013 junior fellow Camron T. Lee from Utah State University.

1. What is your background

I was born and raised in Utah. After graduating high school, I spent two years living in Japan and developed a passion for Japanese language, culture, and history. Since returning to the States, I have been studying Global Communications with minors in Japanese and Linguistics while working as a freelance interpreter. Aside from my study and work interests, I also enjoy traveling and spending time outdoors, especially in the scenic southern Utah area.

2. How did you learn about the intern program and why did you want to work at the Library of Congress?

I stumbled across the Junior Fellows intern program on the usajobs.gov database. My project, the Japanese WWII Science and Technology documents project, was briefly described there, and I was extremely interested in participating in such a fascinating project. I had previously done some interpreting work with modern Japanese science and technology research/development, and the idea of working with that same kind of material with origins in such an important time period strongly appealed to me.

3. How would you describe your internship?

I was very fortunate to find a project that utilizes my skill set as a bilingual Japanese speaker, as well as, my interest in history, science, and the Japanese language. Working with the Japanese WWII Science and Technology materials at LC has been an incredible learning experience. Several divisions house Japanese S&T materials from the WWII era, so I have had the opportunity to experience many different parts of the Library as I examined the collections. My supervisor, Dr. Tomoko Steen, is an absolute expert on Japanese science and technology from WWII, and with her help I was able to create a map of all of the Japanese WWII Science and Technology materials throughout LC to assist researchers in navigating the collections.

4.  What has amazed you the most about the Library?

I am most amazed and impressed by the astonishing scope of the knowledge contained at the LC, both in the materials housed here and all of the brilliant librarians who oversee it.

5.  What have you learned about the Library that you didn’t know before you started your internship?

Since starting my internship I have seen first hand how much dedication and work is required to make the material at LC accessible. I knew that LC had the world’s most extensive collection of books and other materials, but I didn’t realize before coming here how much work went into making all of that material available to researchers.

Camron’s research and analysis resulted in creating two guides:

WWII Japanese Science and Technology Historical Collections at the Library of Congress (Compiled July 2013).  This guide provides an overview to the Japanese science and technology materials which were obtained by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP) during the post-World War II occupation period and came into the collections of the Library of Congress.

Science Reference Guide: Japanese Biological Weapons Units (1933-1945). This bibliographic guide  (complied July 2013) covers both English and Japanese language sources on Japanese biological weapons units, often called “Unit 731.”