1. No category

Exhibition text and object labels
Initial reflection
• Who are you?
• Who is your museum?
Cabinets of curiosities
• MFA: table cabinet, ca. 1580-1600 (German)
Smithsonian Institution Libraries
Wunderkammer: wonder rooms
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Neapolitan pharmacist Ferrante Imperato exhibits his natural history collection to visitors (1599)
scholarly contexts
• Ole Worm’s museum, Copenhagen (in 1655)
Ashmolean Museum
Enlightenment Collecting
• Idealized collection cabinet illustrated in
Elementary Entomology, 1766
Beyond the Enlightenment
•Museums had to add to
the general conscience,
collect empirical
knowledge and represent
the prestige of the
national state.
•Organized, in large
museum halls are
collections more opened
for educative, nationalistic
and economical functions.
American painter, collector, naturalist Charles Wilson Peale: The Artist in his Museum (self-portrait, 1822)
Museum Era of Archaeology: 19th
century to 1930s
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Museums as places of
knowledge collection and
dissemination
As archaeology becomes a
field of study in the late
19th century, museum
needed to provide this
information to the public
at large
Smithsonian established by
Congress in 1846
The Peabody Museum of
Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard
University
1893
1975
1988
1995
Today
Museum research and writing
• Exhibits are the tip of the iceberg!
– Primary sources
– Related publications/sources
– Related collections
– Researcher work
– Research/write-ups
– Memos
– Exhibit proposals
– Consultation
– Meetings
– Visitor study
– New presentations
– New publications
Big Idea!
• Big Idea
≠ topic!
– Big idea clearly states the exhibition or paper’s scope and focus
• Topic = other kinds of value
• Big Idea = what ABOUT other kinds of value? So what?
• Same with any scholarly writing:
– Ulrich topic = The homespun in colonial period
– Big Idea = How women’s work in the colonial period was romanticized. How we
can learn more of colonial history through the gaze of object.
• Tell particular story, not all stories
Label content
• Interpretive vs.
descriptive
• Active vs. passive
engagement
• New Museum Age:
– dispersed authority
– accountability
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Big Idea
Consider audience
Interpretation
Understanding audience
Writing a panel
• Topic
• Theme
• Message (‘When people have read this they
will know…’)
FACTORS AFFECTING TEXT
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Ferguson, et al (1995) identify a number of factors that shape texts:
what is being discussed: the subject matter
who is taking part: the audience
the way the communication is taking place: the nature of language that translates
to the style of the text
the structures and form of language used: the choice of words and the interactions
between the authors of the texts and the end user
They also describe other factors specific to museums:
museum visits are free form: visitors choose what they attend to
museum texts complement other forms of interpretation, acting as labels for
interactive, signposts and orientation devices and instructions
museums have visitors: all kinds of people with a wide variety of learning styles
and interests are motivated to visit museums for a range of reasons
– Ferguson, L., MacLulich, C. & Ravelli, L. (1995). Meanings and messages: language guidelines
for museum exhibitions. Sydney: Australian Museum
WRITING TEXT AND LABELS THAT
WORK
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Serrell (1996, p.84-91) identified a number of steps in writing visitor friendly labels:
start with information directly related to what visitors can see, feel, do, smell, or experience from
where they are standing
vary the length of the sentences
use short paragraphs and small chunks, not large blocks of information
metaphors are better for other forms of narrative, not labels
alliteration is an easy device to overuse
exclamation marks in labels shout at readers and force emphasis on them
humor should be used sparingly
use quotations when they advance the narrative and are necessary
expect visitors to want to read
use informative paragraph titles and subtitles
have a snappy ending
newspaper journalism is not a good model as articles are written with the assumption that readers
will not read everything
stay flexible within the label system - labels that all look the same become boring to read
interrelate labels and their settings
include visitors in the conversation: encourage their participation
V & A guide
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Write for your audience
Stick to the text hierarchy and word count
Organize your information
Engage with the object
Admit uncertainty
Bring in the human element
Sketch in the background
Write as you would speak
Construct your text with care
Remember Orwell’s Six Rules
Packing and unpacking
• Containing the length of labels is like packing
for a trip…consider packing in three separate
piles:
– The things we would like to take
– The things we think we need
– The things we absolutely cannot get along without
And then take only the third group
Part of this is editing
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1. Never use a metaphor, simile or other figure of speech which you
are used to seeing in print
2. Never use a long word where a short word will do
3. If it is possible to cut a word, always cut it out
4. Never use the passive when you can use the active
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word or a jargon word if
you can think of an everyday equivalent
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright
barbarous
– George Orwell, Politics and the English Language, 1946
The label as short story
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Active
Subject
Context
Significance/message
Reproduced photograph, man wearing headdress (2004.29.24259.1)
1898, Marquesas Islands
William McM. Woodworth produced this studio photograph as a way for Western
audiences to experience an "exotic" culture. This man’s tattoos fascinated Western
audiences but were also a way to convey adulthood and served as visual armor to
ward off malevolent spirits and human enemies in his Polynesian culture.
Thinking about interpretations, labels,
and archives
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Museum 2.0
– http://www.museumtwo.blogspot.com/
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AAM curators committee
– http://www.curcom.org/curcom_comp_2012.php
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On display
– http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/permanent/71706.html?mulR=13509|2
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Social tagging
– http://www.philamuseum.org/collections/socialTagging.html
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Archives and labels:
– http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx?objectId=3106
302&partId=1&searchText=London&fromDate=1990&fromADBC=ad&toDate=2012&toADBC=ad&productionInfo=on
&orig=/research/search_the_collection_database.aspx&images=on&numpages=10&currentPage=6?bioId=159228
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Back to the British Museum:
http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/online_tours/americas/kayak_clothing_from_greenland/kayak_clothing_fr
om_greenland.aspx
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What is this?
– http://pmem.unix.fas.harvard.edu:8080/peabody/view/objects/asitem/search$0040swg$002799-1240$002f52899$0027/0?t:state:flow=33d16d3f-e3e0-4c24-869c-41cb4add0b19