Hiram donates three items: A pair of leather gloves, an apron and silver tea set. More importantly, it will be easier for guests to absorb the information if it’s in the same place for every piece they see. The label writing is a study in what can be done simply by the use of clear, elegant language to make difficult things accessible without a hint of condescension. Always provide a table of contents for the museum catalog. What is a Label? Visitor Behaviour, Fall, 4-15. use a tone that is appropriate to the project’s goals and engages visitors. Research has shown that visitors use exhibitions in the following ways (Hein, 1998): In her extensive work on visitor time and behaviour in exhibitions, including data from more than one hundred exhibition evaluations, Serrell (1997) concluded that: To hold visitors' attention and set up the ideal conditions for learning we first need to attract their attention. As any interpreter knows, many museum visitors don’t read labels at all, while others only check out the title. Paying Attention: The Duration and Allocation of Visitors' Time in Museum Exhibitions. The exhibit label is concise, engaging, and a well written story. Sydney: Powerhouse Publishing, 161-168. Litwak, J. M. (1996). (Ed.) Text in the Exhibition Medium. To write gallery text that is interesting, McManus, P. (1989). End the statement with a strong summary and overall theme of your art. What are their likely levels of prior knowledge and interests? The Australian Museum respects and acknowledges the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation as the First Peoples and Traditional Custodians of the land and waterways on which the Museum stands. This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. What are their learning styles? Ferguson, L., MacLulich, C. & Ravelli, L. (1995). Sydney: Powerhouse Publishing, 3-10. In this section, there's a wealth of information about our collections of scientific specimens and cultural objects. Join us, volunteer and be a part of our journey of discovery! (1997). McLean, K. (1993) Planning For People in Exhibitions. Image credit: gadigal yilimung (shield) made by Uncle Charles Chicka Madden. Using Questions as Titles on Museum Exhibit Labels to Direct Visitor Attention and Increase Learning. Research has shown that the demographic characteristics of museum visitors have remained fairly stable, both over time and across studies undertaken in museums and galleries in many countries. Stay focused on those themes as you write. Sandy the Naturalist had another life as the zoologist Frank McNeill. We acknowledge Elders past, present and emerging. Here are two didactic panels from the Spurlock Museum. The Walker Art Center 4. * Limit labels to a maximum of 50 words (if longer, break into two or three smaller labels). Finding Evidence of Visitor Learning. Sitter’s name, life–death dates (years only) 2. Rather, place the number on the acid-free enclosures that hold the negatives. Increasingly, labels in non-English-speaking countries have labels in English as well as the main local language, and in some parts of the world, labels in three or more languages are common. A good title should clearly introduce the topic and content of the exhibition, but at the same time it should be sufficiently distinctive to spark potential visitors’ curiosity. Exhibitions are an enormous investment, both financially and physically. * Use line lengths of 50 to 60 characters. Writing a Better Label Design Tips. 'museum-type' displays/techniques, such as objects in showcases and dioramas, are more attractive for visitors; where available live displays are the most attractive for visitors; three-dimensional visual strategies (specimens, showcases and videos) are more successful in helping visitors recall key information; where there is more variety of interpretation, items other than text panels will be stopped at; where there is more than one strategy used for one message there is more retention of that message; the use of many different examples for a small number of key messages may be most effective for visitors who don't already know about the subject; visitors participate in active (doing) more so than passive (viewing) experiences; and. The Museum's first Research Fellow, Dr Ronald Strahan, passed away in 2010, leaving a valuable legacy of work and influence, according to this tribute by former Museum Directors Des Griffin and Frank Talbot. Meanings and messages: language guidelines for museum exhibitions. As communication devices, exhibitions make use of a wide variety of interpretive media - one of which is language in the form of exhibitions texts. (199?). 1. Continue with a section label, in which you include the relevance of the object. The writing should be as small as possible while still legible. write labels to show how different cultures fulfilled similar needs, such as clothing, eating or furnishing their homes. Hood's work has found that six concepts affect the decisions that people make about their leisure choices: being with people/social interaction; doing something worthwhile for the self or others; feeling comfortable and at ease in the surroundings; challenging new experiences; the opportunity to learn; and activelyparticipating (Hood, 1995). This online exhibit is a great example of how valuable museum labels can be when they consider the audience, appeal to … When you write your team's primary didactic panel, remember that we are focused on the meeting of worlds--two of those being the worlds of sentiment and of science. Hein, G. (1998). Same Object, Different Voices: Write the labels using the voice of the museum expert, the person who made the artifact and the person who inherited the artifact from a grandparent. If the work was part of an exhibit, include the exhibit’s name as the title … Labels for Contemporary Art. If the text on the label or sign is not duplicated elsewhere, and you must cite it, then you may want to include a photo of the label and the object it identifies (if there is one) in your paper or project (in the Appendix). Format of information (wall text, object label, brochure), Gallery Name, Number or Exhibition Title, Museum Name, City, State. In thinking about designing text and labels McLean (1993, p.111-113) outlines some useful ideas: Evaluation and audience research is a key way to ensure that visitors learn from exhibitions and have the best possible experiences. Sydney: Australian Museum. Kim Kenney, writing for Museum Professionals, advises you to limit yourself to 200 words for this kind of label. abeling museum objects with accession numbers is an important responsibil-ity. Serrell, B. the average time spent in Australian Museum exhibitions was 16 minutes (SEX); 12 minutes (Frogs); 23 minutes (Indigenous Australians), 41 minutes (Spiders!). Offering revelation, reframing and provocation, it’s no surprise this label was one of the winners of the 2019 Excellence in Exhibition Label Writing Competition. Steps in the Label Script Process 1. (Ed. • Be crisp, clear, and concise (see the At-a-Glance Outline [pg 6] for word counts for individual types of interpretive materials). Create standard object labels for all of the exhibits in the museum. Additionally, we discuss how recent visitor research has informed the development of museum-wide standards for the writing, design and display of interpretive texts at MoMA. Quebec City: Musee de la civilisation. Research at the Australian Museum has shown that (Kelly, 1999a): Ferguson, et al (1995) identify a number of factors that shape texts: They also describe other factors specific to museums: Visitors use text in a number of ways (Ferguson, et al, 1995): Serrell (1996, p.84-91) identified a number of steps in writing visitor friendly labels: McLean (1993, p.103-112) posed the challenge to produce text that people read and comprehendeasily in the following ways: Text and labels don't occur in isolation - their design can be the difference between success and failure. * Avoid setting identification labels in smaller than 18-point typeface. The Scotsman on V&A exhibition Encounters, 2004 This review from The Scotsman sums up what we are trying to achieve in the V&A. (Weil, 1994, p.43). The ABCs of Label Design. For The Marriage of History and Legend: The Victorian Revival of King Arthuran image of King Arthur pulling the sword out of the stone would be the best candidate in this regard. Check out the What's On calendar of events, workshops and school holiday programs. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press. Use and cite these sources instead of museum labels and signs for a research paper, when possible. Longhenry, S. Hood, M. (1995). Native Legends is considered the earliest published piece of writing by an Aboriginal author. Museum visitors are typically more highly educated, with post-secondary education likely in humanities or the arts; aged between thirty and fifty years or primary school aged children; visit as family groups; are in a higher socio-economic class and visited museums as children. visitors spend much less time in exhibitions than we either think or would like to think - usually less than twenty minutes. (Ed. Make the font size at least 14 points. Writing for a general audience can be extremely challenging. Are they old, young, visiting alone, visiting as a couple, are they with their family or other form of social group? Feel free to put more than one artwork on a label (as in the image to the right) as long as viewers can discern which information belongs with which piece. The curator may like their own style and assume this is what the general museum visitor wants. Bear in mind that brevity is the soul of wit; museum patrons will likely be enticed by a succinct, powerful and brief description. Listen to the live recording of Schindler's Ark author Thomas Keneally in conversation with AM Director Kim McKay. Jumping in Head First! The Bell Museum of Natural History Tease your audience with an introductory label in which you highlight the significant parts of an exhibit. Curator, 40(2), 108-125. Museum Property Handbook (411 DM Volume II) Appendix J J:4 Release Date: New directly. Include the introduction, main s… The Western Australian Museum advises you to consider including main headings and introductory statements, general information (including a basic description of the object), object labels that give the basic context of a work and courtesy labels, in which you acknowledge donors or copyright holders. Jenkins, P.O. But did it work in practice? - Implementing a New Approach to Public Program Evaluation. How to Patent an Idea for a Television Show, Copyright 2021 Leaf Group Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Paper presented at Musing on Learning seminar, Australian Museum, April. Provide a description of the wall text as the title of the source. When you go to a museum there's so many different things you can look at and they're actually choosing the bits that interest them. Exhibition evaluation is a four-step process with opportunities at each stage to test the effectiveness of the messages and interpretive approaches as well as text issues: Exhibition label legibility guidelines that were published in our Older Audiences study: * Provide strong contrast between type and background. The curator’s individual writing-style may be more fact focused. Whether you’re working at a museum dedicated to preserving nautical memorabilia or a museum housing the work of contemporary artists, your visitors need to know what they’re examining. This could be the birth year and death year of the artist (if applicable), the museum’s own cataloguing number for the work, and a credit to the donor of the work if applicable. If you are really interested in museum fonts, check out the Museums tag over at Fonts in Use to see which fonts are currently being used in museums. Although a label has minimum information, it contains some important facts about the art work. Directly Audience research assists both in identifying audiences and in uncovering their interests, needs and prior knowledge levels about a particular topic. While there is no one right way to write object labels, there are some steps that you should take to make sure you’re serving those who walk through the museum doors as best you can. Striking balance between being accessible to target audiences and not alienating or patronising core audiences is hard. in Blais, A. Museum News, September/October, 73(5), 42-44, 62. If you don’t already know the work’s provenance, get this information from the person or people responsible for purchasing it. You have reached the end of the main content. In this section, explore all the different ways you can be a part of the Museum's groundbreaking research, as well as come face-to-face with our dedicated staff. Evaluation and Visitor Research in Museums: Towards 2000. in Scott, C. clarity. // Leaf Group Lifestyle, Museum Professionals: Writing Exhibit Labels. Audience Research Tell Us Why Visitors Come to Museums - and why they don't. Labels with a … Kim Kenney, writing for Museum Professionals, advises you to limit yourself to 200 words for this kind of label. Avg 30 mins in museum / exhib then attention decreases. If you don’t know a lot about the work’s period, do a little bit of research. (Bitgood, 1991, p.115), They're teaching themselves in their own way basically. Text and labels must work in conjunction with all forms of interpretation such as objects, graphics, photographs, video and computer and other interactives, as well as with live interpretation such as performances, lectures, and floor staff. tracking and timing data suggest that visitors do what they want to do, regardless of the best effort of exhibit planners to force a path; visitors skip many elements, visiting on average only a third of them; and. Curator, 32(3), 174-189. Weil, S. (1994). Textiles in life-cycle and other rituals. Exhibit Labels: An Interpretive Approach. Typography 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Type … Source: Punt B. In order to describe a piece to a museum goer, you have a duty to understand what it is first. Museum Practice, 18-21. Most museum labels are black text on a white background. Museums usually display the same kind of information with art shown on their websites too. A big idea helps exhibit planners share the same vision for what the exhibition is really about (Serrell, 1996, p.4). This website may contain names, images and voices of deceased Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Samson, D. (1995). Developing access to collections: assessing user needs. The Perlman Teaching Museum 2. Don't be Boring. Reading Strategies Used by Exhibition Visitors. Come and explore what our researchers, curators and education programs have to offer! These labels can tell us a lot about what we are seeing. Text for exhibit labels should be friendly, but still speak with authority. Writing directly on the surface. Doing It Right: A Workbook for Improving Exhibit Labels. Useful guidelines for writing text and labels, and a reference list are also included. 4. The whole ... to write a number on an object use a … If you ever visited an art museum you might have noticed that a label with several lines of text is usually displayed near each work of art. Washington: Association of Science Centres-Technology Centres. Many times the more famous or iconic work of art in the exhibition is on the title page with the title. Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum 3. Available online at http://www.amonline.net.au/amarc, Kelly, L. (1999b). Every child's different if you watch them. MacLulich, C. (1995). (1996). Exhibit planners are accountable for this investment and must ensure that the optimum visitor experience is achieved. • Use strong verbs and an … In this section, find out everything you need to know about visiting the Australian Museum, how to get here and the extraordinary exhibitions on display. The curators and scientists usually write the exhibit label script. Use 20 to 24 Point Font. Imagine that you were selling the exhibition to another person who didn't know anything about it, how would you describe it? Museum goers will be interested to know, for example, if an anchor in your collection was recovered from a shipwreck in the Marshall Islands, but do not need to know the name of the ship’s captain. Textiles For rugs, costumes, linens, draperies, flags, and other textiles, use permanent black ink to write the catalog number on white linen tape. Distilling large amounts of detailed information or research about an object into a succinct, relevant, interesting and widely-accessible label can be a complicated, tricky and at times frustrating task. This label contains information often included on labels on art work on museum walls. For description describe it as an exhibit and under location include the name of the museum, and if you’d like, the collection or part of the museum where the exhibit can be found If the contributor is an organization, make sure to enter this in the last name field. To cite wall text, follow the MLA format template. (Ed.) That way, your guests will spend their time examining the display, instead of reading your words. Highlight each individual object with a label that includes the bare facts. In some areas they stay longer, in other bits forget it. Labels (object labels) are identifying text for an artwork placed in a museum gallery room containing an exhibition. And remember that less is more. In rare instances, less damage is caused by writing a catalog number directly on the surface of an object than applying a number to a barrier coat. ), Evaluation and Visitor Research in Museums: Towards 2000. 003 are the aprons, 004 & 005 are the fobs and 006 is the label pin; = 2001.002.001-006 - The museum’s next donation is on March 5 th 2001, when Bro. Messages need to be clear and concise since visitors spend little time in exhibitions. (1989). what is being discussed: the subject matter, 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, museum visits are free form: visitors choose what they attend to, museum texts complement other forms of interpretation, acting as labels for interactives, 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, adults read sections of text aloud for children and other members of their group, adults read privately and then discuss the text with other visitors, visitors 'talk back' to the text and answer the questions it poses, visitors use words from the text in their conversations, start with information directly related to what visitors can see, feel, do, smell, or experience from where they are standing, 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, use quotations when they advance the narrative and are necessary, use informative paragraph titles and subtitles, newspaper journalism is not a good model as articles are written with the assumption that readers, stay flexible within the label system - labels that all look the same become boring to read, include visitors in the conversation: encourage their participation, labels that are combined with photographs, drawings, objects and other sensory elements have a greater impact on visitor learning than any one element alone, labels should be designed to ask questions, encourage participation, attract attention, direct viewers and encourage comparisons, information in labels can be layered to allow for different levels of engagement through different presentation styles: conceptual, graphic, interactive, emotional and physical, setting objectives for each exhibit component helps to determine what types of information and labels to include, labels should start with the actual experience at hand: what the visitor is looking at or experiencing at that point in the exhibition, visitors have limited time to absorb information so interpretive graphics should be clear, concise, understandable and short, if a long passage is necessary divide it into several labels rather than clumping it together in one huge block, writers must be able to let go of some information, as painful as it might be, people only usually spend a few seconds reading a label so it must convey essential information in that time, people usually stand while reading labels: fatigue, the jostle of crowds, the pull of children and the attraction of other exhibits effect reading behaviour, decide which elements need specific explanations and which elements are simply re-emphasising a point, make sure there are not better ways to present information, such as brochures, catalogues, information sheets, audio-guides, video, graphic images/drawing, cartoons, text writing should be considered an integral part of the exhibition development process, initiated and developed along with the exhibit design, identify the circumstances under which labels will be viewed, labels should be large enough to read while standing at a comfortable distance from them, need to allow for simultaneous viewing by a number of people, they should be close enough to the area or object they are describing so the visitor doesn't get lost between the object and its label, labels should be located to allow viewing from a range of heights, they should be legible for people with visual impairments, the six major elements to consider when designing exhibition labels are typeface; type size; label and type colour; line length; letter spacing; and label production materials.