Friday, October 12, 2012

Week Four and Five Readings



The readings for these two weeks were:
 
-"Temporary Exhibits" and "Visitors and Interpretation" from Introduction to Museum Work by Hugh Genoways 
 -"Always True to the Object, in Our Fashion" by Susan Vogel
-and selected readings from Exhibit Labels: an Interpretive Approach by Beverly Serrell

The two chapters from Hugh Genoways' book addressed the need for a museum to know its visitors. Last week, Demone and I analyzed data from the Museum of Anthropology to get a more precise idea of entrance numbers, age groups and reasons for visiting. This data, as Genoways discusses, is vital to designing a successful exhibit. It is how we decide at what reading level to create our panels, at what height to hang them and what kinds of hands-on activities to include. We need to find a balance between age groups as well as between people who visit for recreation and more serious learners. 

Considering all these factors, Demone and I decided to aim for a 6-8th grade reading level to appeal to children, Wake Forest students, faculty and staff, and members of the community. 

Susan Vogel reminds us that demography is not the only key factor in designing an exhibit. She says on page 193, "We can be insiders only in our own culture and our own time." Her article highlights the importance of consulting members of an exhibit's target culture to gain insights that curators and exhibit designers may not be aware of while also ensuring that the members of that culture feel the exhibit accurately reflects them.

Our final set of readings dealt in depth with the process of creating exhibit labels. As I mentioned in Tuesday's blog, Demone and I have been using relying on this book extensively as we have been designing our introductory panel. This book will be a valuable resource as we begin writing labels and designing the exhibit.

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