Exhibitions in UCC Library

16 May 2017 | Elaine Harrington

Contact Details

Elaine Harrington, Special Collections Librarian

e.harrington@ucc.ie | 021 4903484 | @walkerabroad

The Riverside: @theriversideUCC

http://blogs.ucc.ie/wordpress/theriverside/

http://libguides.ucc.ie/specialcollections

Why Exhibit?

Jessica Lacher-Feldman:

“we exhibit because we can, and because our holdings make for

great exhibits. Sharing our treasures with a broader audience is a

natural outcome of the work that we do. Finding opportunities to

take the materials out of the stacks and placing them in context in

an exhibition is exhilarating, challenging, and beneficial. What

better way is there to share what we […] do in the profession than

to feature our talents and treasures?”

(Exhibits in Archives & Special Collections Libraries. Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2013. p.7)

First Thoughts?

So you want to do an exhibition?

When?

Why?

For whom?

How can we manage your expectations?

Funding

Getting ready the space.

Storyboards or vinyl text?

Images

Marketing material

Launch

Events

Staff time

Scheduling

Working with people inside and outside of UCC who all work on

other projects.

• Possible conservation requirements

• Possible creation of display mounts

• Design team for storyboards

• Other institutions and their administration

• Photographers

• Editors of images

• Printers of storyboards

• Team to mount exhibition

• Library personnel involved in exhibition.

What else are YOU doing?

Design

Visit the exhibition space in advance – know its dimensions.

Material Selection

Objects are displayed in a context:

• The choice of objects

• Their place in the room or the case

• Their place in relation to each other

• The interpretation that has been given

Books as objects?

Impediments to selection?

How to use audio? Bill Fontana’s White Sound

Use of replicas

Image selection – upload to Dropbox so all can see.

Exhibition Cases

There are three cases

available: Two tall cases

and one clam case.

Choose the exhibited page

wisely!

Too large to fit in a case?

http://www.castlebar.ie/mayo_historical_and_

archaeological_society/Viking_Ship_Replica.shtml

Images & Permission - Cervantes

Images – Modern Irish Pilgrimage

Writing

Are visitors there to look and do or to read?

Know your audience or your average 14 year old!

Entire exhibition text: possibly no more than 625 – 1250 words.

Storyboard panels: 150-200 words with small broken up paragraphs.

Labels: Identification purposes usually. They should have no more than

75-100 words.

Fonts: where do you stand? People generally view from about 2-3 feet

away so standard 24-36 point font for panels is recommended. Labels

can be smaller 12-24.

Example of label

from British Library

training activity

Storyboard Design

Printing & Mounting

Printing and mounting with a company is a week.

Doing it oneself:

• Arrangement of transport and delivery

• Various equipment:

Steel tape measure

Laser spirit level

Hanging equipment

A step ladder can be provided if sufficient notice is given.

Hanging always takes longer than expected.

Spotting mistakes!

Marketing

Scoping Document on Visual Anarchy in the UK – A

Comics Tradition (British Library): rise of comics and

graphic art. Film and television adaptations of comics.

Marketing

Launch

Lights, Camera, Action?

Student Exhibition: HI 6091

Role of student exhibitions:

• Classes that go beyond ‘show & tell’

• Real world experience

• Analyse documents and through them tell

a story to the public in exhibits

• Bring the primary sources to a wider

audience.

• How your research can be conveyed

visually and cohesively?

A series of classes covered:

• Exhibitions and student exhibitions

• Blogging

• Handling

• Reprographics

• Copyright and permissions

Result: Online exhibition formed by a series

of blog posts on The River-side.

Student Exhibition: HI 6091

Students consider all aspects of an exhibition through a series of tasks & readings

Online Exhibitions Task #1a: How does the writer engage the interest of the reader?

“Cambridge Illuminations Virtual Exhibition.” Fitzwilliam Museum.

2005. http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/gallery/cambridgeilluminations

"Thinking and Experiencing ‘Techne’: Experiments with Amber." Victoria & Albert Museum. 17

January 2017. http://www.vam.ac.uk/blog/research-department/thinking-and-experiencing-

techne-experiments-with-amber

Blogging Task #1b: How does the writer engage the interest of the reader?

Williams, Sierra. "Blogging Platforms Are Not Neutral: Challenging the Underlying

Assumptions of Our Technology." LSE Blog: Maximising the Impact of Academic

Research. 27 July 2016. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2016/07/27/blogging-

platforms-are-not-neutral-challenging-the-underlying-assumptions-of-our-digital-infrastructure/

Green, Duncan. “An Antidote to Futility: Why Academics (and Students) Should Take Blogging

/ Social Media Seriously.” LSE Blog: Maximising the Impact of Academic Research. 26

October 2015. http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2015/10/26/why-academics-and-

students-should-take-blogging-social-media-seriously/

Student Exhibition: HI 6091

Copyright Task: You wish to submit a paper to 31st Irish Conference of Medievalists. The

paper topic is your response and skills learned in creating an exhibition in the form of blog

posts, e.g. The Book of Kells series of blog posts. What permissions / copyright clearances

are for required for this paper? For more about the conference:

http://www.irishmedievalists.com/archives/927.

Marketing: Choose a cultural institution: gallery / library / museum. It can be national or

international. What do they do to promote their exhibitions? An exhibition may be targeted at a

particular set but do the promotional activities match that set?

Social Media: Read the documentation UCC has created for how to use UCC's social media:

https://www.ucc.ie/en/dewg/socialmedia/

Series of events for

Facing Pages: The Art

of the Great Book of

Ireland

LibGuide: Creating Exhibitions

Exhibition LibGuide created for all but particularly for anyone who

wants to do an exhibition.

• Uses examples from exhibitions previously in UCC Library.

• Includes documents e.g. layout of space, schedule of activity.

Recommended Reading

Creating Exhibitions

Lacher-Feldman, Jessica. Exhibits in Archives and Special Collections Libraries.

USA: Society of American Archivists, 2013.

Matassa, Freya. Organizing Exhibitions: A Handbook for Museums, Libraries and

Archives. London: Facet, 2014.

National Library of Scotland and University of Edinburgh. National Exhibiting the

Written Word. Edinburgh, 2011.

Vincent, Helen. “The Library and the Display of Text.” IFLA 2012

Using Exhibitions in Teaching & Learning

Mitchell, Seiden & Taraba, eds. Past or Portal? Enhancing Undergraduate

Learning Through Special Collections and Archives. Chicago: Association of

College and Research Libraries, a division of the American Library Association,

2012.